How the delete key is your best friend
The Exchange/Outlook Product Manager for the UK, Allister Frost, has posted 
the “Best Outlook tip in the world” on his blog.
It’s not what you are thinking. He doesn’t recommend switching to Ubuntu.
Instead, he offers a long post in praise of the delete key, which works as well in Apple Mail as it does in Outlook.
His post shows you how to power through your Inbox, featuring,
- The Three Ds – Do, Defer, Delete, two
- Two questions – Is this email important to my objectives? Is it actionable?
- One result – more time for the things that matter.
He spices the whole mix with an anecdote that will strike fear into the hearts of email hoarders:
Back in the early 1990′s my boss would return to the office after a holiday and ceremoniously empty his (at this time paper-filled) in-tray into the bin. He was so right when he said “If it’s important, they’ll let me know.”
By deleting extraneous information and concentrating only on what is important to you and your personal objectives you can regain control over the email monster and achieve a happier and more fulfilling work-life balance.
You will be amazed, he says, how much of your email you can delete when you put your mind to it.
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Tags: defer, delete, do, email, Inbox, Productivity, saving time, the delete key
July 1st, 2006 at 10:07 am
Stop humoring me, Tim. :-)
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:18 am
;-)
July 5th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
I don’t get why some people think it’s so hyper-efficient to go through email and delete stuff. Desktop search makes email archives exceptionally useful over time. I’d be lost without my many-gigabytes of email that can give me an answer to just about any work related question in some shape or form (or at least a hint towards the answer… the manager in charge of XYZ123 … who most recently sent out an announcement about product BCD987…)
To me deleting stuff is wasted time and energy.
July 5th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
I must say that I am a fan of deleting – it’s the same kind of efficiency that keeps by desk clear.
On the other hand, I am extremely to grateful to people like you who don’t delete and are thus able to answer just about any query I put to them. Thanks :)
July 9th, 2006 at 2:37 am
As hard drives have expanded seemingly without limit (especially in the frame of reference of text email), I’ve come to agree with Dan Warne. If the goal is to minimize the number of times you handle each piece of mail, and if folders are under suspicion of getting in the way in these days of fast search on multiple keywords, moving things from the inbox to another folder is not accomplished anything and it taking up time.
For me the right compromise has been as follows:
1. I use the inbox as my ToDo list and my Delegation followup list, and my Deferred action list. I’ve been using flags to mark mail for action and followup, but after I get done responding, deleting/junking, or filing in a dossier, what’s left is a core of stuff that “won’t go away until I deal with it”, and it is all flagged. I’m about to start drawing additional distinctions and setting calendar action items for some items with Mail Act-on and MailTags.
2. To help clear the inbox, I set my trash to empty only messages older than one month, so I can toss stuff I *might* need in there without anxiety, and pull it out if things change soon. Otherwise, it gets ditched automatically. Usually, something I can remember a month later is well-defined enough to request another copy, if necessary.
3. When I do act or respond to something or get confirmation that it has been successfully delegated, I stow it or trash it, depending on whether it seems like a resource for future reference.
4. I try to stay on top of my inbox daily, but weekly, I go through it and clean up by making the thorough scan that hasn’t happened all week. I may accumulate 300-500 emails that haven’t been dealt with, and I usually can whack that back to about 100 that I’m holding for future action or followup, by ditching, doing, dealing, delegating, dossiering (?), or if necessary deferring them another week.
On my aging eMac home computer, I don’t bother with filing things in folders anymore, except that I clear the entire inbox out to an archive folder every few months, to keep Mail from having to deal with more than about 1000 messages in the inbox. Sometimes I set up a smart folder that picks out certain email groups. Perhaps I’ll eventually make this move on my work computer when I’m comfortable with MailTags?
Tom Moore
July 11th, 2006 at 1:19 am
Hi Tom.
Thanks for your long and thoughtful comment. I find that it is always good policy to agree with Dan :)
That tip about setting the Trask to a long period before deletion is a good one. Even the best judgements about what’s valuable can be upset by life’s odd turns of event.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:59 pm
[...] My advice is not much good. I only have about 35,000 emails spread over four IMAP accounts and about ten mailboxes (see further, “How the delete key is your best friend”). That’s chicken feed by Dave’s standards. [...]
September 4th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
[...] Some of them will be familiar to Hawk Wings readers like how the delete key is your best friend and reducing the frequency of your email checks. [...]
September 13th, 2008 at 10:14 am
i have 7000 mails in my old inbox i want to clear that all at a time. how it is possible. please mail me