E-Mail In-Box Clutter: An Appreciation

For nearly as long as there’s been e-mail, virtual organization evangelists have pushed various management services promising to clean up your in-box and change your life. Their mantra is “In-box Zero”—that nirvana-like state when nary an e-mail resides in your in-box—and their followers exhibit all the self-righteousness and smug superiority of non-TV watchers and juice cleansers.

They use apps such as Mailstrom, SaneBox, Alto, and Xobni, which was just acquired by Yahoo! for $48 million, and they all work in similar ways: They try to scan your incoming e-mails and sort them into categories so you can prioritize the flow (or, in my case, flood).