How I got through my inbox in only two months - ratfactor
Note: Illustrations are pen drawings from my sketchbook, as you’ll see at the<br>bottom of this page.
In May of this year, I boldly announced that I would be tackling my email<br>backlog in Project Inbox 2026.
I won’t repeat anything from that page other than these two facts about my<br>inbox when the "project" began:
When I started, the messages went back to August 2025 and came to an astounding 52,000 words.
All of it was directly written to me by humans. I’d already cleared all the spam and newsletters, etc.
In a little less than two months after I started, I’ve replied to every one of<br>those emails. In fact, I’ve been replying to replies (and new messages) for a<br>couple weeks.
(If anyone happens to be reading this who sent me an email between August 9th<br>2025 and July 20th 2026, and haven’t received a response, then it may have been<br>caught by the spam filter. I did rescue a couple messages from there, so I<br>know it can happen. Please do re-send.)
The inbox is not completely empty right now. That’s intentional. I’m trying to<br>learn how to respond to follow-up messages in a healthy semi-weekly cadence<br>that will be sustainable.
People are not "projects"
I want to be really clear about what I mean when use the term "project" in this<br>context.
I’ve got a small slot of time in the morning when I usually get up before the<br>rest of the family and have some quiet time on the computer. I’ve slowly built<br>up the discipline to use that time to consistently work on one main project.
When I set my inbox as my "main project", it simply meant that I used my quiet<br>time in the morning to respond to email. I replied at other times, too, but<br>that solid block in the morning was really important.
It does not mean that I think of responding to people as a "project".
(It also doesn’t mean that I didn’t allow myself to do anything else during<br>that time. Writing email often sparks ideas for Cards and other<br>small improvements on this website. So rather than give myself a huge backlog<br>of notes, book reviews, etc., I’ve tried to keep up on those<br>additions/changes as they occur.)
How it felt
Declaring this as my sole project helped me feel better right off the bat. It<br>let me relax and not rush through the replies.
As I understand it, humans don’t generally have a multi-task ability and I’m<br>one of the least multi-tasking humans you’ll ever meet. It’s important for me<br>to feel like the thing I’m working on is the right thing, or<br>it is very hard for me to concentrate.
But feeling truly sanguine about the mountain of unreplied messages came with<br>practice and time. At first, it was really hard not to constantly apologize for<br>being so late, but I got better at that as I went. (Some of you will know that<br>a few apologies slipped through anyway. Sorry, LOL.)
I always feel better about something when it’s moving along, even if<br>what remains still feels very big and very intimidating. Because at least I<br>know that if I’m making some progress, it will eventually be done.
But it was more than that. As I responded to 10 messages, then 20, then 30, my<br>feelings changed from guilt and overwhelm to gratefulness for having<br>so many people write such heartfelt and/or interesting things to me.
By the time all of the messages fit on a single screen,<br>the shame and overwhelm was gone entirely and was replaced with a feeling of<br>unhurried excitement.
Tools: An email client and my new personal contact database
My main weapon of choice is the Aerc terminal mail client. The<br>thing to understand about Aerc is that it is a normal mail handler, and also<br>a terminal emulator. When I compose an email, I’m typing in a Vim session<br>running under a "tabbed" terminal in Aerc. Everything is handled through temporary files.
As you can imagine, this not only makes Aerc incredibly customizable, it also<br>integrates extremely well with my existing personal ecosystem of text file and<br>tools.
And speaking of that, this whole Inbox 2026 project seemed like the perfect<br>opportunity to take another stab at something I’d been wanting to do ever since<br>I read Derek Sivers’s<br>Why you need a database (sive.rs):
…I’m going to recommend you go further than that, and also keep track of<br>… your private notes about people ("served in the army, loves talking<br>politics")
That’s something I’ve struggled with a lot. One of the real boons of email is<br>that it lets you keep long-term "pen-pal" relationships going. But I’ve found<br>that relying on my memory is a very poor way to keep a record of things I’ve<br>learned about someone scattered across dozens of messages stretched over a span<br>of years. And when I forget, I feel like a bad pen-pal.
(Of course, I have the original email messages, but it’s not reasonable or<br>reliable to piece together a long-term understanding of another person by<br>searching for and re-reading the entirety of our previous conversations!)
I need some notes and I need them to be very handy.
Since Aerc lets you launch...