True Inbox and Inbox Zero

Superficially, the two seem bad together.

Last week we introduced True Inbox on Newton. Now on, when you start a new email conversation in Newton, you’ll see it right in Inbox. Thus making the Inbox the only list you have to deal with for managing your conversations.

OMG, this means more mails in Inbox for me to clear to reach Inbox Zero?

Well, what is Inbox Zero?

If your definition of Inbox Zero is simply about how you can quickly clear all mails in your Inbox, then True Inbox isn’t good for you.

Inbox Zero is a GTD workflow where my inbox becomes my task list. It has all my actionable conversations. The ones I want to deal with later are snoozed, and the ones I’m done with are archived. When I’m done with all the conversations in inbox, I achieve Inbox Zero. Sounds good so far?

Before True Inbox, this task list didn’t have the new conversations I started. They were hidden in the Sent folder till I get a reply. To follow up on them, I had to either a) remember to set ‘remind if not replied’ before sending the mail or b) had to later search for that mail or find it in Sent folder, and Snooze it to put it in Inbox. If I forget to do any one of the above, I lose track of those mails. With True Inbox, you don’t have to remember to do any of the above. It’s just right in front of you in your task list. You can archive them if you don’t want to track them, snooze for later or just keep them in the list till you are done.

Yes, previously I could just ignore them if they didn’t require following up. I agree, this has resulted in more clicks in Inbox now. But I think it’s still better than the clicks you would otherwise make if you had to follow up on them. Added to that is the risk of forgetting about them. With True Inbox, they are not out of sight, out of mind.

By the way, this is all assuming that you are using only Newton for emailing on all platforms. If not, it won’t work well and it’s better turned off. E.g. if you archive a conversation on another client it may not reflect in Newton.

Also, this is not to say that True Inbox will work for everyone. We were just attempting to free your mind 😎. If it doesn’t work well with your current workflow, it’s life as usual if you turn it off and continue using Newton the way you are used to — Newton Settings > General > True Inbox. ✌🏼