Why I Delete Every Unanswered Email, Every Month

"Every cleared inbox is a boulder rolled uphill, only to tumble down again the next morning. More accurately, I declared bankruptcy. As of September 2025, my system is simple: Every day, I do my best to reply to the emails I can. When the last day of the month arrives, I delete everything still sitting in my inbox. If a message matters, it'll find its way back. If it vanishes, that's often the truer measure of its value."

"Inbox Zero rests on the idea that being maximally responsive to communication channels is equivalent to being maximally effective. But I can think of countless examples of leaders, thinkers, and creators who thrived despite (or perhaps because of) their selective indifference to correspondence. Charles Darwin frequently allowed letters to pile up unanswered, devoting his attention to projects that demanded solitude and long stretches of uninterrupted thought."

"What Inbox Zero demands is not unlike what Franz Kafka described in his office work at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute: a ceaseless stream of claims and counterclaims, most of which carried little weight compared to the work he considered truly vital. He knew the bureaucratic machinery would never stop generating new files. Our inboxes generate their own paperless equivalents, multiplying in volume without end."

Inbox Zero originally promised control and an unburdened mind but often becomes a Sisyphean ritual that regenerates each morning. A practical alternative is selective responsiveness coupled with deliberate deletion: reply to what can be handled daily and purge remaining messages monthly, allowing important matters to resurface if truly necessary. Historical figures like Charles Darwin and Virginia Woolf illustrate how ignoring correspondence can protect sustained creative work. Email’s endless inflow mimics bureaucratic machinery, producing anxiety through perpetual unread items. Treating responsiveness as effectiveness conflates access with productivity and undermines deep, focused work.

Read at Westenberg.