I recently switched over to a new 15-inch MacBook Pro to replace my aging PowerPC based PowerBook. Over the last two years, the email inbox on my old laptop had piled up over 11,000 messages; and God knows how many more in the sent folder. I left all that baggage behind on my old laptop, not bothering to bring a single piece of old email to my new machine.

Personally, I can no longer stand to have my email inbox bulging at the seams with old, useless messages. For that reason, I was no longer willing to allow the inbox on my new computer to ever get to that state of perpetual clutter. I started poking around the web for some good email management tips and came across Merlin Mann's excellent Inbox Zero approach -- a set of "skills, tools, and attitude needed to empty your email inbox -- and then keep it that way."

Plunging straight in, I adapted the Inbox Zero principles to suit my own needs; boiling the various tips and rules down to 3 pillars of inbox management:

1. Limit email checking: I only check my email once every 3 to 4 hours. This is number one on the list as it's critical to do and the easiest to implement. While this is easy to do, it takes some getting used to. Get used to the fact that the world will not end if you don't check your email every 5 minutes. And people can wait for a response, their worlds will not turn to dust if they do not receive an immediate response from you.
2. Delete, file, respond: One of these three things happens to every single email that comes into my mailbox. If an email merits a response, respond immediately. All "FYI" type emails are ruthlessly deleted or filed--if an email doesn't need a response, delete it or file it and move on. Email messages are not priceless treasures of human history that must be preserved forever; get used to deleting.
3. Inbox rules: I receive tons of regularised daily emails containing performance reports, summaries and the like. I use Apple's Mail as my email client and make extensive use of rules to dispatch such emails to a separate folder. This way, all the emails are available to me when I need them, what they're not doing, however, is cluttering up my inbox. Keep adding and refining the rules over time to keep your main inbox squeaky clean.

Finally, for your viewing pleasure, here's Merlin Mann's original Inbox Zero talk, delivered to a packed auditorium at Google.

Enjoy life, not email.