winterspeak.com: "Here's how to empty your inbox (and keep it empty)
1. Put the oldest, crustiest emails at the top. This will help you remember to get rid of them.
2. Delete all spam (without opening it).
3. Go through all personal messages from friends and family (the most important emails). Read them, enjoy them, delete them. If you must keep them, copy and paste the text into a text editor and save it in your hard disk as ''initials of sender' 'date' 'keywords''.
4. Your inbox now contains email of middling importance only. Sequentially engage each email to remove it from the inbox:

- If the email is a to-do item or appointment, copy and paste it as a to-do or appointment into your calender program. To-do items should be tied to specific days, so Outlook users are out of luck. Delete email in inbox
- If email is a item of correspondence tied to a project, save it in the folder for that project as ''initials of sender' 'date' 'keywords''. Delete email in inbox.
- If the email is reoccurring (newsletter, list), read the email and enjoy it if you have time, else delete it. You'll be getting a new one tomorrow anyway. "