Today, I love this question. Yesterday? It would have stressed me to answer it! A messy (or full) inbox is like a ToDo and ToFile list that has no end. It’s stuff that needs to be taken care of (somehow) and just hasn’t been yet.
Yesterday, I had over 600 emails in my inbox. A few were from several years ago, and were from friends I don’t talk to often, and wanted to be reminded to talk to once in awhile. Handy to have them at the bottom of 5 screens worth of emails, isn’t it?! You might find this backlog odd that considering the fact that I have dozens of folders to file emails in, and all my newsletters and notifications and listserv emails go directly into folders without even stopping in my inbox. It just happens. (See Carley’s latest tip if you need help doing the sorting of the bulk mail!)
Somehow, in a series of Unfortunate Events, I manged to delete my entire inbox. Every last email, gone into the black hole that is my Vista-controlled PC whose innards I no longer navigate with confidence. After 90 minutes of mozilla and google hopping, I gave up. It’s quite possible they’re still buried somewhere in those murky depths, but I’ve decided to let them lay there, happily undisturbed. It feels rather nice to have THREE, yes, a measly 3 emails in my inbox tonight. Ahh, the bliss of a short list :).
So, how many do you have, and are you ok with it or does it irk you? Happy monday!