The Quest for the Nearly Empty In-Box

Basics - The Quest for the Nearly Empty In-Box - NYTimes.com: "SINCE e-mail became a fixture in our professional and personal lives, many academic researchers have investigated the complex mix of feelings brought on by the technology.

We feel guilty about being late in responding, about our in-boxes being disorganized, about the tens of thousands of unread messages that we’re sure we’ll never get to. What is it about e-mail that consumes us — that invades every corner of our personal space, demands ever more sophisticated methods of organization, and makes us wish for extra hours in the day to deal with the deluge? More important, how can we overcome it?

In the last few weeks, I set about finding a cure for e-mail anxiety. It was not the first time I’d done so; I’ve been looking for better ways to handle my mail since shortly after logging in to my first in-box."