I agree that sometimes it’s good to filter emails out of your inbox and into some ancillary box. As an example, when my company is hiring, I filter resume submissions to a separate mailbox that I check less often than my “real” inbox.

@Carl: I find a physical inbox in a prominent spot on my desks (home and work), plus a set of plastic GTD folders in my laptop bag have helped me develop more discipline around analog inputs. But it does take some practice!

For those inputs that don’t allow for email notification, you could maintain a list of current inboxes you are monitoring and review it as part of your weekly review (either using whatever list tool you’re already using, or by using a custom tag in Delicious — “monitor” or “inbox” or something).

Hope that helps!

I think the thing I miss most about my e-mail lists is the easy way of handling them in one software package.

Unlike you, I get irritated with the number of emails that I have coming in and try to split them at source. This does mean that I have multiple inboxes as you describe.

One way I have found to deal with this is simply to make a mini-project/next action to check each inbox and process them at a time that I choose to. In many cases this is part of my daily routine. I still feel in control without having masses of differing sorts of information coming into, say, my work inbox.

Where I’m not so good is with ‘analogue’ inboxes – I can all too easily dump paper stuff wherever it will fit. Digital – I’m good at. But non-digital – not so good.

Good post though, some food for thought here.

Best!

But sometimes my Inbox is downright scary. I’ve taken to creating filters and moving less important stuff directly to folders that I check on occasion. But the really important stuff (including the dozen or so notes that I email to myself on a daily basis) need to hit my Inbox.

Voila, I have only one inbox.