Email processing took well below 30 minutes total today! Awesome! It seemed like a long shot even just a week ago, but it is definitely possible to spend less than 30 minutes per week processing email.

An Admission

Admittedly, the total time spent processing messages may have also been shortened a bit because I am being more specific with my time tracking and am not including time spent reading messages that I want to spend time on, such as those from family and friends. I am really only interested in time spent processing the messages to filter through all of the noise and get to the messages I actually care about.

New Target

Last week, the 30 minute time limit was “mythical” and today it is a reality. I should be satisfied with reaching my goal so quickly, but I cannot help but think about how much faster email can be processed. Though it seems far from possible, my new goal is to spend 10 minutes or less on email per week. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this experiment, it is that the impossible is usually closer than you think.

Today’s Stats

• Checked email: 1 time
• Time: 11:14:23
• Total messages: 151
  • Inbox: 50
  • Bulk: 101
  • Important: 1
• Time per Message
  • Inbox: 09:05 (5.5 messages/minute)
  • Bulk: 11:09 (9.1 messages/minute)
  • Management (filters, etc.): 04:01
  • Total: 24:15
  • Average: 6.2 messages/minute