Email is like Tetris: you lose eventually

I have an as-yet-unproven hypothesis about email equilibrium: that we eventually settle into the right rhythm with emails such that we just barely get through the last email every day, with our last fading bit of energy before falling into bed with exhaustion.

Here's the thinking: 1. There are too many emails to start with. 2. We try hard to keep up; fail. 3. The emailers who don't get consistent replies eventually get the message or look elsewhere for answers/action and stop emailing as often or at all. 4. The volume of emails reduces towards the level at which we can keep up. 5. If/when it overshoots, and we start to really get on top of our emails, we have more energy and time and start writing more intelligent replies, or indeed initiating more email threads, thus generating more replies back to us. 6. So we converge on a certain email equilibrium, with lack of replies correcting for when we've got too many emails, and the instigation of replies from others correcting on the low side when we've got too few.

So why doesn't email equilibrium last? Because, alas, we get burnt out running at optimum speed. A day comes along when we just get tired, say screw it, I'll take a day off, and then we fall off the hampster wheel, and the emails pile up again. If only we could just keep up, then we would indeed keep up!

No, you can win e-mail tetris without cheating.

You must decide for yourself which action your e-mails require: Trash, Defer, or Action. GTD gets this right.

If you don't make those decisions as e-mail enters your box, you're effectively saying (while playing tetris) "I'm going to ignore all of the L-shaped blocks and deal with the wreckage they leave behind later." Yeah, you'll lose. You have to make a decision on _every_ piece that drops into your inbox.

Filters can do wonders, if you really do have a huge influx of mail. You don't have to read and respond to every message unless you really want to.