You might have run across my posts about my extreme inbox management:
- https://codexgalactic.com/2012/10/28/extreme-email-management-via-gmail-filters/
- https://codexgalactic.com/2010/02/25/gmail-workflow/
TLDR: I previously used hundreds of filters, marking many as read, and partitioning the inbox. The crux of the method is a label I have: to-respond, which I immediately triaged any email that needed a response to.
Now in the 2020s I’ve updated my email process to Superhuman. I have been a long time Superhuman user (use my referral code https://superhuman.com/refer/p466infu), and love the fast triaging process. Only this past month however did I migrate to their unhinged email inbox management: a process where you archive EVERY EMAIL so you have not only zero unreads in your inbox (which I’ve maintained since email was invented), but also have zero emails in your inbox, period.
TLDR: I now use the Inbox Zero method with the Superhuman Client.
Archiving my entire inbox took a few minutes to schedule, and a few days to complete. After that, I handle messages as they come in. And my “to-respond” label is now instead the very existence of an email in my inbox. If I don’t want it sitting around cluttering my eyeballs, because I’m unlikely to respond soon, I schedule it to return to my inbox at a particular time (the weekend, on a date before it’s do, etc.).
As such, I’m constantly staring at my todo list that is most relevant, and frequently have the following view on my inbox, because I’m clearing it faster than every before.
A small note: I still use filters, but much less frequently. Superhuman has super easy tools to unsubscribe in a swipe, and block if unsubscribe isn’t available. If I do really want to filter to archive and/or label, I schedule the email to return when I know I’ll next be at a computer, and setup filters then. It happens rarely, and maybe superhuman has this feature on mobile but I haven’t found it.