For a couple weeks now I've been using Lifehacker's Trusted Trio method to keep my GMail inbox clear, and it's worked great - one more reason why Lifehacker has become one of my favorite blogs to date! The idea is quite simple:



For every single email you get, you as soon as possible get out of your inbox and place it into one of three "bins" (which can be folders in Outhouse Outlook, or, even better, labels in GMail): Action (stuff I need to read and/or reply to!), Hold (stuff I need to be able to keep on the back burner and keep an eye on, like emails I'm waiting on a reply for), or Archive (pretty much everything else that isn't spam or "funny" jokes forwarded by co-workers, you can just delete those). Since placing an email into one of those three options doesn't take a lot of time at all (meaning you usually don't have to even read the whole email to be able to categorize it) - poof! Your inbox is cleared very quickly, also you have a nice handy email "to do list" lying in your Action bin for you to "get done".



Check it out, this is what an empty inbox looks like - beautiful, isn't it?