Inbox Zero or Inbox Infinity?

I’ve experienced Inbox Zero and Inbox Infinity, and there are pros and cons to each.

Inbox Zero is the pursuit of keeping your inbox ordered at all times. My definition of Inbox Zero is that there are no emails in “Unread” status.

Inbox Infinity is embracing an unordered inbox and allowing your “Unread” emails to climb towards infinity.

A key point that I want to make upfront is that I believe Inbox Zero was a more popular ideology when the search function in your inbox was rubbish. It was genuinely harder to find the emails you wanted with search, so you needed to file your emails for better discovery. Nowadays, it’s super easy to find the email you need, so I don’t believe that having a rigorous filing system is necessary.

Alrighty, so the pros of Inbox Infinity:

I genuinely didn’t mind that my Unread emails climbed over 10,000. You get desensitised to these numbers when they get so large, so I didn’t really experience any anxiety with it.
I didn’t need to keep ordering my inbox. I just looked at the fresh emails when they came in, took a mental note, and took action if and when I needed.
As I mentioned before, it was actually easy to find the emails I needed amidst the chaos.

The cons of Inbox Infinity:

I never really felt on top of things.
I took longer to action more time-sensitive emails because I couldn’t easily see which emails were outstanding.

My previous norm was Inbox Infinity, and at some point I made the conscious decision to try Inbox Zero. You may think this is a daunting task, but I deleted over 90% (if not more) of the thousands of unread emails en masse. In doing this process, you quickly realise how much junk mail is in your inbox (and this includes those emails you think are important but they’re really not).

So, the pros of Inbox Zero:

Even though I wasn’t bothered by having thousands of unread emails before, I did feel lighter when I hit Inbox Zero.
It was easy to see every new email and whether it needed actioning.
The mental load from maintaining the ongoing system is quite manageable once you get used to it.

But there is a con of Inbox Zero:

Regardless of how strong my intentions were towards Inbox Zero, I found the Unread emails would creep up. And the more they creep up, the more headspace and willpower it requires to clean it up again.

Right now, my Unread email count is 160, and I’m strangely experiencing more anxiety with it in the hundreds than when it was in the thousands or when it was in the tens.

So I guess the reason for this blog post was a personal reflection on whether I should lean back into Inbox Zero or allow Inbox Infinity to return?

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