The Atlantic

Don’t Reply to Your Emails

The case for inbox infinity
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Updated at 2:50 p.m. ET on January 30, 2019.

The day after Christmas, I spent seven hours sifting through more than 2,700 unread emails I had accumulated over the previous month. Like many other people, I intended to begin 2019 with a fresh inbox and zero unread messages.

Since the idea of “Inbox Zero” was first coined in 2007 by Merlin Mann, a blogger who championed “,” it has become what many people consider the pinnacle of digital organization. have been written on how to achieve Inbox Zero. Products such as , , and were all built to help make our inboxes more manageable. And a growing number of offices have instituted

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