It’s interesting how often we run into ‘managing an email inbox’ as a strategy to manage a firm. Entrepreneurs (and everyone else) really struggle with their inbox filling up. We all know that inboxes get so overwhelming that we default to living in them. Business owners who have no planned strategy around the commitment of their time (like strategic calendar work blocking) just default into behaviors that reduce our stress. The email inbox seems to be our default ‘go to’ to feel like we are getting things done.

But we aren’t getting things done when we default to clearing out our inbox or trying to employ a strategy to keep our inbox at zero. Frankly, that’s impossible, and I don’t even think it’s what Merlin Mann, the creator of Inbox Zero, even intended. Have you noticed that your email just fills back up again every time you empty it?

What is an inbox? It is a reflection of other people’s desire for your time. And that is what you can’t control. You can’t control what other people are doing when they decide to send you an email. That means you can’t really make ‘Inbox Zero’ a strategy. Further, with AI, bots, and spam growing so rapidly, keeping an inbox at zero is generally impossible. 

Strategies to manage your email are fine, we just don’t need to be shooting for an inbox that is at zero as a reflection of an effective strategy to manage our knowledge. Using folders to store email, leveraging an assistant to manage our inbox with us, and pushing emails to spam are all very helpful. 

However I think we’re focusing on the wrong thing. What you can control more easily is how knowledge moves through your firm. The proper management of knowledge is part of what pipes communications through inboxes. So focusing on how you design knowledge to move into your firm through your inbox (and other team member’s inboxes) is a key. 

Here’s an example of how you could do this well. When we assign clients to our team, we have a kickoff meeting with the clients and then tell them to begin emailing the team member for everything they need. Even if the team member doesn’t initially know what to do with the email, we still want to “lay down the knowledge pipes” to have that client’s needs and requests begin flowing through the team member’s inbox. That is key. When we delegate work to our team, it’s important to delegate the inbox that goes with that work. Or it will just keep pumping into our inbox, filling up more and more as we grow our firm and hire more team members. It becomes unsustainable at some point.

Here’s a poor example of when you can tell a firm or a client has no knowledge management strategy within their company. When you email a group of people in your client’s organization to schedule a meeting, and then they all begin emailing one at a time through the inbox designating which meeting times work for them, or the times that do not work for them. Instead of that client having their own meeting internally to decide when they can all meet, they put the burden on you and clog up your inbox with all of their own back and forth between themselves. Essentially, the clients’ team are all having a meeting inside of your email inbox just to decide when they could meet. No one takes responsibility for planning on their side, they just let your inbox bear the weight of the back and forth. We have to tell our clients that they need to decide and one of them tells us a good time to meet. We can’t sort through their disorganization.

Managing knowledge is key to running a firm well, but making it your goal to seek an inbox that is always zero is a goal that will put you on a never-ending chase for an impossible task. Instead, think about where you have not intentionally ‘piped’ knowledge away from your inbox. It’s not always possible but it is a good place to begin. Any intentional planning of how knowledge moves through your firm will aid you in scaling and relieve you of the exhaustion of inbox zero.