Chemin Soleil CouchantE-mails account for 3.8% of greenhouse gases, more than civil aviation!
34 billion users worldwide.
1 MB sent = 1 25-watt light bulb switched on for 60 min.
Only 1% of metals used in the digital sector are recycled.
Inbox Zero is a method of efficiently managing your e-mails. The aim is for your inbox to be (almost) empty, so you don’t have to stress about your e-mails.
Want to put Inbox Zero into practice? Here’s the key: your inbox shouldn’t be seen as a storage space. Not only should you check all the e-mails that arrive in your inbox, you should also deal with them quickly, either by replying to them or by archiving them.
Follow these 5 steps to success:
If you receive an e-mail that you don’t want or that contains information you no longer need, delete it. This may sound radical, but there’s no point in cluttering up your inbox with messages that contain no useful information.
Also consider unsubscribing from newsletters and marketing e-mails that you never read due to lack of interest or time. This reduces the number of messages you receive per day. This way, you can lighten both your mind and your mailbox.
Some of the e-mails we receive don’t really concern us, or we’re not the right person to deal with. In this case, forward the message directly to the right person.
If an e-mail requires an urgent response and it won’t take you more than a couple of minutes, do it immediately. For example, answer a colleague’s question, confirm a decision, give feedback on a document, etc. Avoid keeping the message in your inbox or adding it to your to-do list. Answer it right away, then archive or delete the message, and move on.
If an e-mail takes longer than two minutes to answer, file it in a “to be dealt with” folder. During the day, set aside a slot in your schedule to deal with messages placed in this folder. The rest of the time, your mailbox is closed, so you can concentrate on your current tasks.
Some messages require no reply from you. This is the case for meeting invitations or purely informative messages. In this case, read the message, make a note of it (enter the meeting or event in your diary) and archive it.
Today, there are many tools available to help you cut down on e-mails, improve communication with your colleagues and be more productive. Such is the case with the Wimi collaborative platform and its discussion channel system, an instant messaging tool that allows you to centralize and organize discussions by project, and exchange with your collaborators in real time.
Thanks to the Inbox Zero method, you no longer waste time organizing and filing your e-mails, but deal with them immediately. The advantage is that you can quickly decide what to do with your messages. So they don’t pile up in your inbox. Your mailbox is fast (or almost), and you’re more serene and efficient in your daily tasks.
