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Merlin Mann gave a presentation at Google about his Inbox Zero approach to managing email. It’s a very interesting presentation, and I encourage everyone who feels even a little frustrated with email to watch. Down below, however, I take issue with one specific idea that is presented.

Inbox Zero boils down to the following actions you should take on all email in your inbox:

• Delete/Archive
• Delegate
• Respond
• Defer
• Do

But Merlin repeatedly says not to use your Inbox as a TO-DO list, which I disagree with when it comes to handling tasks that come in through email. I don’t think the inbox should contain all your To-Dos, because it’s not a task management program (use Stikkit, Remember the Milk, or even a hipster PDA for that). But for email to-dos, the inbox seems the most natural place to keep them.

In a nutshell, I think the Defer step is unnecessary, if you consider that there is another, very obvious and intuitive way to visually differentiate emails - the unread status of emails. Let me explain:

I try to keep my inbox as empty as possible. When an email comes in, I read it and then either :

• Delete/archive it immediately
• forward on to someone else (aka delegate) and then archive to get it out of my inbox
• respond or do it immediately, then archive it
• leave it in my inbox for later

The key here is that if an email is not important and/or doesn’t require any further action from me, it’s out of my inbox. Only things that require attention from me stay in my inbox. Things that are unread require immediate “processing”, whereas already-read messages in my inbox need attention from me soon, but not immediately. The nice thing is most mail apps will bold or otherwise highlight unread messages, making this super intuitive.

The only exception is the rare case where an email must be dealt with ASAP but I can’t deal with it ASAP. In this case, I mark it back to unread so I know that it’s waiting for me. Ex: maybe I get an email asking for super important information, but also my cat is on fire. I better deal with the cat first. But when I come back to the computer, my Gmail Notifier tells me I have 1 “unread email”, which I translate into 1 “thing that needs attention”.

I’ve found that deferring emails by putting them in a “TO-DO” or “To Respond” folder just serves to hide those emails, and you know what they say, “out of sight, out of mind.” The “Defer” folder seems like a sure way to forget to do something, not a good system for remembering how to do it. If you do need this defer until later then follow up, etc, functionality, get a GTD application and move the email into that.

Anyway, that’s how I encourage people to use their inbox. But Merlin’s approach is also awesome and might work better for you. The presentation covers a lot of other good points about using email and how to be productive in the face of tons of email, so it’s worth a watch regardless.

So find some time and give it a listen - it takes an hour of your time now, but it might save you weeks of time going forward.

If you have comments about how you manage your inbox, please post them in the comments.

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So some of you know that I love me some podcasts. One of the ones I listen to regularly is Grammar Girl. Wait, before you roll your eyes, it’s more interesting than it sounds.

Anyway, I had sent in a question a few weeks back after being intrigued by a sign on the Metro, and today she answered it on the podcast!

Checkout the audio right here (don’t worry, it’s pretty short):

Or surf on over to the shownotes for Unlawful vs Illegal to read the transcript of the episode.

Hot off the upload script:

• Phil’ and Micki’s Wedding
• Samir’s and Malini’s Wedding Reception

I’m slowly getting my pictures up. Check the photos tab at the top for all my photos.

The website WalkScore doesn’t really tell you that much you didn’t already know about your neighborhood. If you live in the boondocks, you probably know that don’t have squat around you. If you live in the city, like I do, it’s hard to miss all the stores around you.

But what WalkScore does is give you an actual score of how “walkable” your neighborhood is, meaning how many interesting things are around you (like restaurants, movie theatres, stores, libraries, etc).  Then you can rub it in your friends’ noses how much “cooler” you are.

As for me, this is my timeline, in terms of WalkScore:

1. 1979-89: Childhood home: 46
2. 1989-97: Teenage home: 11
3. 1997-02: College off-campus house: 85
4. 2002-04: Post-college home: 83
5. 2004-now: First purchased home: 86

Once I had the ability to pick where I wanted to live (aka once I moved away from my parents house), my WalkScore shot up dramatically. I’m definitely more of a city person than a suburb dweller. My coworkers express shock when they hear I actually live in DC. But hey, I enjoy having a high WalkScore apparently. What does your progression of WalkScores say about you?

I think this site is going to find uses in lots of strange places. I can see people deciding where to live by how walkable the neighborhood is. I imagine students may decide which schools to attend partially on how walkable they are. Tourists might even pick hotels or vacation destinations based on their walkability. The site is trying to capitalize on the current green movement, but I think just in terms of pure convenience, this site has a real use.

I can’t wait to see where I move next…

wow, I thought Amazon EC2 was slow until I tried to log into twitter