As e-mails arrive in a steady stream throughout the day, it’s impossible to keep the inbox empty at all times. It’s up to the user to decide how often to clear out the inbox. There are two main choices:

1. As e-mails arrive. As soon as a batch of new e-mails arrives, engage and delete the new messages, thereby bringing the inbox back to a count of zero. It therefore never takes more than a few minutes to empty the inbox; however, this approach may distract users from tasks that may need sustained, concentrated effort.
2. Once or twice a day.Users may choose not to empty the inbox, or even check e-mail at all, except at certain times of the day. This guards against spending too much time “glued to the screen” and helps ensure that users will spend their limited time in e-mail efficiently. If users opt for emptying the inbox once a day, close-of-business or bedtime are good times to do it. Starting off one’s day with an empty inbox can be a unique stress reliever.

Users really should not let an inbox go more than one business day without emptying. Allowing new e-mails to pile onto old e-mails overnight yields an especially demoralizing sight in the morning: an inbox filled with new work and yesterday’s unfinished work.

Users who are away from their e-mail for several days (on a business trip, for example) may find it especially difficult to keep the inbox empty — even if they can access e-mail from the road. Meetings or conferences during the day leave very little free time to manage e-mail. There is no easy answer for this, except perhaps that the user must try especially hard to manage the inbox, even when time is short.

But remember: Cleaning the inbox doesn’t have to mean doing all the work in its messages — just filing them properly. The inbox is only for temporary storage of e-mails waiting to be put in the right place.

At any rate, users should commit to emptying the inbox at some frequency. Since messages never stop coming in, the user must never stop in the pursuit of an empty inbox. The only alternatives, which are not recommended,  are to hold the inbox steady at a certain count — in which case the user might as well hold it steady at zero — or to let the inbox grow and grow, until it eventually crashes the e-mail program, losing the entire inbox in the process. At least then the inbox will be empty.