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Comment by arthurb2 | Hacker News Reader

After not understanding how it was possible to get inbox zero, I remembered that Gmail has an Archive box.

I personally leave everything in the inbox and concern myself about reading all emails flagged important... am I the only one to not use the archive function?

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you are a piler: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archiv...

Awesome! I knew these descriptions exist. I heard through the rumor mill that google had identified 12 distinct types of emailers too.

I am a piler. I agree with responding to email appropriately, but it is definitely just going to get left in my inbox.

The problem with leaving things in my inbox is that if I don't deal with it immediately, it quickly disappears in the stream of incoming stuff. So in theory I could "just develop the discipline" to deal with important / worthy items at the time of reading, but expecting myself to manufacture that discipline out of thin air actually stresses me out way more than a commitment device.

I was all excited to see this response from someone who totally gets where we're coming from. Then I noticed that my cofounder/spouse wrote it. :)

But, yes, here's more on that out of sight out of mind problem: http://messymatters.com/email

I leave everything in my inbox and currently have 0 unread personal and 1 unread work emails. My system is this: if it's marked unread, I need to do something. If it's read, nothing needs to be done. I also filter emails that i'll never need to do something with, but definitely want to their own folder (or tag or whatever) and remove it from the inbox. That means my main stream of incoming email is relevant, the nice to know is off to the side and I have a clear set of emails to review. The setup also means every email I get on my phone (only check certain tags/folders) is what I need to read soon, while other email is relegated to my 3 times a day checks (first thing, around lunch, last thing). The hardest part when moving to this system is setting the expectation that email is asynchronous communication and if real time or emergency communication is necessary, use another form of contact.

I just star anything that needs response and leave everything in the inbox.

If you need it, you can add different color stars to represent whatever you want.

I don't understand why people feel the need to archive. Seems like procrastination through over-optimization to me.

I actually don't know anyone that uses the archive function.

My "inbox zero" equivalent is to have no unread e-mails as I often leave e-mails that I need to respond to or handle as unread.

We do exist. I love having an empty inbox.

+1. Archiving is a huge part of my workflow, which is similar to that of the folks above me.

Pretty sure all versions of iOS >= 4 (and new-ish versions of OS X) support Archive when you tap the Delete icon, so it's not something I even think about anymore.

Gmail's Archive function is (or at least was, 8 years ago) its best feature! If you're not using it, you're Doing It Wrong.

If you think of your inbox as a to-do list (where the most basic task is "read this"), then the most common pattern ITDBG (In The Days Before Gmail) for managing your to-do was using read/unread as your done/todo flags.

This was annoying; when reading an email that can't be actioned right away you'd have to go back and mark it as unread. Trivial, but it always felt like there was a better way.

When Gmail launched with it's Archive feature, it was definitely an "ah-hah!" moment. Now the read/unread flags had no hidden meaning, and your to-do list was simply whatever your saw in your inbox. When you action an email, away to the archive it goes.

Reaching inbox-zero is a gloriously satisfying moment. Why yes ... I WILL read some google news.

Disagree. And if you're telling someone they're doing something wrong, you may be overemphasizing your point.

I use priority inbox to filter out the messages that I ignore 99% of the time. For items I need to act on later, I use stars. With P.I., I can hide or show my Priority emails, my starred emails, and everything else. So things that are new can get my attention, or I can focus on finishing something up, etc.

I don't disagree that your system works effectively for you, but I think it's a silly statement to tell someone else they're doing it wrong (especially silly to capitalize the phrase Doing It Wrong.)

The problem I have: I've got too much mail coming in to use manual "archive" effectively.

I filter mail aggressively. My inbox currently sits just below 2000 messages. "All" folder has nearly 25,000 messages. Given a 1-week average, I seem to get about 200 emails/day.

Most of those are machine-generated notifications or various list / subscribed mails. Subscriptions are generally ingnorable, though I'll be interested in stuff that pertains to my own posts, and occasionally search archives for issues related to things I've encountered (dual curse of GMail: it makes handling mail a bit awkward, but its search utilities are pretty good).

Those filter rules are also a bit funky. Where procmail gives great power (and requires great responsibility), GMail's filter syntax is more limited, doesn't allow running arbitrary commands (duh), and leaves me a bit confused on the order of application of filters (though it seems better than MS Outlook, which was completely broken in this regard).

My email is not just a to-do list.

It is in part a to-do list.

It's a reminder pile.

It's a knowledgebase.

It's a news stream.

It's a "oh, X happened, let's see if there's any other notice of it elsewhere in mail".

Not a one-size-fits-all tool.

My preferred interface

I do.

5 overall states for email:

unread

read+star (urgent/reminder)

read (todo/reference for current tasks/projects)

archived (done + keep for reference)

deleted (done + not needed for reference, or ignored altogether) - so "your amazon order shipped" etc.

I don't keep the inbox empty, but there are only emails regarding ACTIVE tasks/conversations in it, its natural state is 0 unread emails, as if you don't do that, well chaos awaits.

Archive Tip; you can reply+archive; gmail resurrects the whole conversation if you get a reply back, so you can pick up the whole thing if something you thought was done with gets resurrected. (useful for those "here's an answer, hit me up again if that's no good" replies)

The flip side is; I don't bother with labels at all, search just seems to render that redundant as far as I can see.

Sounds almost exactly me. I leave important emails in my inbox that I'm working with (and one or two from my parents). I have a max of about 10 at any time. Zero unread.

I would love to see these states represented:

- Unseen (sent but I haven't opened my inbox or cleared the notification)

- Unread (seen but not opened)

- Read

- Read & replied

Then I can delete and archive when I want.

I think GmailZero is perfect for your workflow. You can set your goal as inbox 10 instead of inbox 0. I could also see an argument for inbox 25 or whatever fits on one screen. Or maybe inbox 7 as the number of things you can hold in short-term memory...

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