Now, thanks to Esther Dyson's recent column on the Project Syndicate website, I know there is a better way to achieve "Inbox Zero". Dyson, a former journalist and Wall Street technology analyst turned investor, has devoted her piece to the many advantages of Mailstrom, a little piece of software that helps you manage your e-mail:
Mailstrom does an excellent job not only of categorizing my mail, but also of helping me to get rid of it by applying my own intelligence — and willpower. It helps me do things that I cannot do for myself when I’m trying to sift through my mail. It finds all the messages from a certain person, and then lets me handle them in a batch — delete, move, or even answer....
Mailstrom does this in a sleek way, replete with numbers — selecting, counting, and sorting messages by date, subject, sender, social network, size, and so forth, and showing charts of the statistics. Mailstrom shows you how many messages of each particular type you have; it ranks the frequency of subject lines; and it lets you see how many messages you have received and how many you have handled each day.
Read Esther Dyson's column in its entirety here to learn more about Mailstrom. And then visit the Mailstrom website to sign up for free: "Achieve Inbox Zero".
- Here you can check out my simple 1-2-3 formula for dealing with e-mail.
- UPDATE (February 19, 2013): Mint has published a piece today on apps that help you to achieve Inbox Zero, whether you check your e-mails on your phone or on your PC. Check it out here.
- UPDATE (June 5, 2013): Gopal Sathe has written a very useful article in Mint today about how to be the boss of your e-mail inbox. Read it here.
