May 21, 2016 editorial: comments

Inbox Zero…Ha!

When I read about email programs that promise to get you to “inbox zero” — that is, completely clearing out your inbox each day — I chuckle wistfully and hum the old Bob Dylan lyric: “It ain’t me, babe.” 

Put it this way: there’s about zero chance I’ll ever get to inbox zero. It’s not that I don’t try. In fact, a couple of months ago, when I got to about “inbox 23,000” (spread over several email accounts, two personal accounts and a work account), I went on a deleting spree, and after literally a couple of hours of slashing and burning, got my  collective inboxes down to a svelte  18,000 emails. Progress, I suppose. Unfortunately, it’s easy to accidentally delete important emails when you’re getting rid of the junk. Whenever I purge my inbox, that seems to inevitably happen.

I’ll actually never get to inbox zero, unless I completely change my workflow, because I like to keep my emails to refer back to, especially for work stuff. Still, if I paid more attention to cleaning out all the advertisements and donation requests and other junk that I get every day, I could probably reduce my inbox number. For me, I guess, inbox 15,000 is the new inbox zero.

What’s kind of staggering to me is the volume of emails I get that I don’t even end up reading. Not personal ones, of course, I answer all of those – unless they somehow get lost in the clutter. No, I’m talking about the ads and any spam that doesn’t get caught in my email program’s filter — these don’t get read beyond the preview pane. At least it’s all digital, so no trees are being killed for this totally wasted communication.

One communication that was not at all wasted was my interview with producer/mixer/engineer Andrew Wade, which posted this week. He’s got a very interesting way of recording and mixing guitars, which he details, along with some other mixing tips. Check it out.