== 'Inbox zero' doesn't seem to work for me but it's still tempting

Every so often I read another paen to the 'inbox zero' idea and get
tempted to try to do it myself. Then I come to my senses, because
what I've found over time is that the 'inbox zero' idea simply
doesn't work for me because it doesn't match how I use email.

I do maintain 'inbox zero' in one sense; I basically don't allow
unread email to exist. If it's in [[my actual MH inbox ToolsEmail]],
I've either read it, am in the process of reading it, or I've been
distracted by something being on fire. But apart from that my inbox
becomes one part [[short term to-do tracker WhyInboxTodo]], one
part 'I'm going to reply to this sometime soon', and one part [['this
is an ongoing issue' HowIUseEmail]] (and there's other, less common
parts).

What I do try to do is keep the size of my inbox down; at the moment
my goal is 'inbox under 100', although I'm a bit short of achieving
that (as I write this my inbox has 105 messages). Some messages
naturally fall out as I deal with them or their issue resolves
itself; other messages start quietly rotting until I go in to delete
them or otherwise dump them somewhere else. Usually messages start
rotting once they aren't near the top of my inbox, because then they
scroll out of visibility. I try to go through my entire inbox every
so often to spot such messages.

What it would take to get me to inbox zero is ultimately not a
system but discipline. I need most or all of the things that linger
in my inbox, so if they're not in my inbox they need to be somewhere
else and I need to check and maintain that somewhere else just as
I check and maintain my inbox. So far I've simply not been successful
at the discipline necessary to do that; when I take a stab at it,
I generally backslide under pressure and then the 'other places'
that I established this time around start rotting (and I may forget
where they are).

On the other hand, I'm not convinced that inbox zero would be useful
for me as opposed to make-work. To the extent that I can see things
that would improve my ability to deal with email and not have things
get lost, 'inbox zero' seems like a clumsy indirect way to achieve
them. More useful would be something like status tags so that I
could easily tag and see, say, my 'needs a reply' email. You can
do such status tagging via separate folders, but that's kind of a
hack from one perspective.

(I'd also love to get better searching of my mail. Of course none
of this is going to happen while I insist on clinging grimly to
[[my current mail tools ToolsEmail]]. But on the other hand my
current tools work pretty well and efficiently for me and I haven't
seen anything that's really as attractive and productive as they
are.)

(A couple of years ago I wrote about [[how I use email HowIUseEmail]],
which touches on this from a somewhat different angle. This entry
I'm writing partly to convince myself that trying for inbox zero
or pining over it is foolish, at least right now.)

=== Sidebar: why the idea of inbox zero is continually tempting

I do lose track of things every so often. I let things linger without
replies, I forget things I was planning to do and find them again
a month later, and so on. Also I delete a certain amount of things
because keeping track of them (whether in my inbox or elsewhere)
is just too much of a pain. And I've had my inbox grow out of control
in the past (up to thousands of messages, where of course I'm not
finding anything any more).

A neat, organized, empty inbox where this doesn't happen is an
attractive vision, just like a neat organized and mostly or
entirely clear desk is. It just doesn't seem like a realistic
one.