Decisions. Decisions.

Your inbox gives you a unique opportunity to make thousands of decisions in a day. However, the problem with the typical inbox, which is not unlike the usual sort of business operation, is that there are many different kinds of decisions happening simultaneously and relentlessly. Essential and optional intermingle.

The first thing is email is your tool, like your phone and your laptop. Many people think about these tools as ways for the outside world to get a hold of them and at the end of the day, that's what they end up being. They end up being leashes for the outside world. 24/7. However, these are your tools and you get to decide how to use them.

By the way, you don't have to use email. While there are many businesses where that would make things extremely difficult, there are some very, very successful people in the world who have never used email. John Paul DeJoria is one example. He is the creator of Paul Mitchell hair products. He's worth about $3,000,000,000. He's never had an email; he's never used a computer.

So it is your choice, and it's your tool, and you have to use it the way that suits you.

Secondly, email is an asynchronous communication tool, meaning that you can use it to write and respond when it is right for you. So can anyone else. There is no right or wrong time to check your email and people who say they only check it twice a day, are lying. I check my email probably 40 times a day. I love checking my email because I have an efficient email inbox and it’s a place of action, activity, interest and a place where I can get shit done.

So use it the way you want, when you want.

Remember it doesn't matter what you're doing in the inbox: answering a question, providing a biography, or viewing a document, activity becomes email; even if you're dealing with 15 types of different micro activities.

If you understand that the actual overall work that you're doing is email inboxes, then that becomes your focal point. The number of times that you sign in is not as important as how much time you spend processing. If you have an efficient decision process in place, then it doesn't matter how often you're checking it because you could check it for a few seconds and get something done as long as you're not taking that thought with you to the next activity.

So why is inbox zero important?

Well, the inbox is your tool, and right now many people are using the inbox as an open-ended “to do” lists that other people fill for you.

So email is not the problem. It's how you manage it.

Originally appeared in “The Replaceable Founder” by Ari Meisel, 2018