Inbox Zero: Merlin Mann's method for getting through your email

Inbox Zero is a way of handling email so it stops running your day. Instead of reading, rereading and half-answering messages as they arrive, you process each one quickly to a decision: delete it, archive it, reply if that takes a moment, or turn it into an action you track somewhere else. The inbox becomes a place messages pass through, not a to-do list you can never finish.

This guide covers what Merlin Mann actually wrote, the questions at the heart of the method, the myths around the name, and how Barside, a free desktop app for Windows, Linux and Mac, can take newsletters and follow-ups out of your email.

Where Inbox Zero comes from

Merlin Mann introduced Inbox Zero on his productivity site, 43 Folders, in a series of posts that began in March 2006: "Inbox Zero: Articles of faith" on March 13, "What's the action here?" on March 20, "Processing to zero" on March 27 and "Better Practices" on April 4. On July 23, 2007, he gave a Google Tech Talk called "Inbox Zero" in Mountain View.

Mann was open about his debt: he said the approach is "based heavily on David Allen's Getting Things Done book." If you know Getting Things Done, you will recognize the idea of deciding the next action for each item and keeping actions out of the inbox.

The 43 Folders site is no longer online. The original posts can still be read through the Internet Archive, and the sources on this page link to those archived copies.

The three questions for every message

At the core of Inbox Zero are three quick questions you ask of each email:

1. "What does this message mean to me, and why do I care?"
2. "What action, if any, does this message require of me?"
3. "What's the most elegant way to close out this message and the nested action it contains?"

Many messages end at the first question. If it means nothing to you, delete it. If it matters but needs nothing from you, archive it. Only the messages that need action go further, and for those you choose the simplest way to close them out: a short reply now, a task in your list, a date in your calendar.

Process, don't answer

The key shift is between answering email and processing it. Mann put it plainly: you empty a full inbox "not by responding to each of those emails but by ruthlessly processing them".

Processing means each message leaves the inbox with a decision. A long reply can wait for its own time, but the decision to write it, and the reminder, happen now. The email no longer has to sit in front of you to be remembered.

Check email in dashes

Mann also suggests checking email in scheduled "dashes" instead of all day. Open the inbox at set times, process it, and close it. Between dashes, your attention belongs to your work. This pairs naturally with time blocking, where email gets its own blocks.

Getting out from under a backlog

If your inbox holds thousands of messages, going one by one is hopeless. Mann's approach for a big backlog:

1. Delete the obvious junk.
2. Archive mailing lists.
3. Move the messages that are real items into a folder called something like pending.
4. Your inbox is now at zero. From here on, process new mail in your dashes.
5. Work through pending in your dashes, a batch at a time, until it is empty.

Common Inbox Zero myths and mistakes

• Myth: the inbox must always be empty. Mann himself wrote: "You've doubtless already discovered your inbox won't stay at zero -- and it shouldn't." The zero is about processing, not a count.
• Answering instead of processing. Writing every reply on the spot keeps you in email all day. Decide, then do the long replies in their own time.
• Using the inbox as a task list. Starred and unread emails are a poor to-do list: they hide among everything else. Move actions to a real list.
• Checking constantly. Email open in a tab all day undoes the method. Use dashes.
• Processing a huge backlog one by one. Use the pending folder instead, and start fresh.

How Barside helps you reach Inbox Zero

Barside is not an email app. It does not connect to your email account, and you keep processing mail in Gmail, Outlook or whatever you use. What Barside does is give the things that come out of your inbox a better home: newsletters go to a reader, and actions become tasks with dates and reminders.

Move newsletters out of your inbox

Newsletters are often the biggest share of an inbox. In Barside, they can skip it entirely:

1. Sign in to Barside, open Settings → Reading, and under Your Barside email address choose Get my address.
2. Subscribe to new newsletters with that address, or forward existing ones to it.
3. To forward from Gmail, Settings → Reading first walks you through adding your Barside address in Gmail's forwarding settings and confirming it. Then open a newsletter in Gmail, choose Filter messages like this, tick Forward it to with your Barside address, and tick Skip the Inbox. One filter with substack.com in From covers every Substack newsletter at once.

Newsletters then arrive in Reading's Newsletters list, cleaned of tracking pixels, where you can read, highlight and listen to them. They never touch your email inbox again. See the read-it-later inbox with highlights.

Turn emails into tasks

When the answer to "what action does this require?" is more than a quick reply, capture the action in Barside and archive the email:

• Press Alt+Shift+Space from your email, type task and the action, like task Send Dana the signed invoice, and press Enter. It lands on the task board without you leaving your email.
• Give it a due date on the board, or press its bell for a reminder at an exact time.
• Write enough context in the task to act without reopening the email, such as who asked and what they need.

Track what you are waiting for

For emails where the next move is someone else's, keep a Waiting for note with a checklist: who, what and when you asked. Press the bell on an item to set a reminder for the day you will follow up. See reminders on notes and tasks.

Keep reference out of the inbox

Emails you keep "just in case" often hold one useful fact. Copy that fact into a note, such as a client's note in its workspace, then archive the email. The search bar finds it later by any word.

Schedule your dashes

Add your email dashes as a few events in Google Calendar or Outlook, or as checklist items with reminders, like 11:00 Email dash and 16:00 Email dash. Barside's Calendar view shows your day next to your notes, and a reminder brings the dash to you instead of you checking all day.

A dash, start to finish

Say your 11:00 dash opens on five new emails. A shipping notice means nothing to you now: delete. A receipt you may need at tax time: archive. A colleague asks whether Thursday works: a one-line reply, sent. A client asks for a revised quote: you press Alt+Shift+Space, type task Revise the Acme quote, give it tomorrow's date on the board, and archive the email. A supplier promises samples next week: a line in your Waiting for note with a reminder for Friday. Three newsletters that would have joined them went to Reading instead, thanks to your filter. The inbox is at zero, and nothing that matters lives only in your email.

Who Inbox Zero suits

• Anyone who gets more email than they can read, and feels it running their day.
• Managers and freelancers, whose inbox is full of requests that are really tasks.
• Newsletter readers, whose subscriptions bury the messages that matter.

It suits people less if email is a minor part of their work. A short daily check may be enough without any method.

Related methods

• Getting Things Done, the method Inbox Zero is based on.
• The GTD weekly review, where getting your inboxes to zero is the first step.
• Time blocking, to give email dashes their place in the day.
• Personal kanban, to see the work your emails turn into.