99.5% of users reported an increase in their daily productivity after adding SaneBox to their inbox

It’s hard to believe when the movie “You’ve Got Mail” came out in 1998, people actually looked forward to opening their inboxes.

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, today’s average employee spends 13 hours per week reading and replying to emails. This translates into 28% of your time being spent on a completely reactive activity that is probably not even part of your job description. Imagine how much more productive you would be if you could get that time back.

At SaneBox, we’ve spent the last 5 years helping professionals fall in love with their email again. We’ve done lots of research, talked to thousands of customers across hundreds of industries, and prepared the above video to help you get to Inbox Zero every day. Most of the necessary steps are extremely easy, while others will take some discipline. Trust us—they are all worth it.

The 3 Email Commandments

1. Email Is Like Tetris

   Clearing your inbox feels productive. There’s an instant gratification. But just like in Tetris, no matter how good you are, more emails will keep coming, and faster. Today, the average professional sends and receives 122 business emails each day. By 2019, this number is expected to climb to 126 emails per day. Because days in 2019 will still be 24 hours long, something has to change—you.

2. Email ≠ Your #1 Priority

   Email is the first thing we focus on when we get to work and we get default #1 priority. The problem is email is a To-Do list other people can write on. So when “doing email” is your main focus, you’re le ng other people dictate your priorities! The only way to combat this is our Scan-Block-Ask system:

   1. Scan your Inbox for urgent and important items, and take care of them first thing in the morning. Then close your Inbox and work on your top priorities.
   2. Block 30- to 60-minute appointments on your calendar later in the day for processing email.
   3. Ask yourself if clearing your Inbox is the best use of me right now. If the answer is no, wait until your next scheduled email block.

3. Not All Emails Are Created Equal

   Every email interface gives the same amount of real estate on the screen to each
   message. This tricks our brain into thinking every email is equally important.
   Consciously we know this is wrong, but it’s hard for our subconscious to differentiate. And this costs us me. 90 seconds for every interruption, to be exact.
   There are 3 kinds of emails:

   1. Important & Urgent: Deal with these right away.
   2. Important & Non-Urgent: These can wait.
   3. Unimportant: These emails make up 58% of an average inbox! Archive or delete them in bulk.