In spite of the basic futility of the idea, people will feel compelled to try to tame email. Creative Good co-founder Mark Hurst, one of the smartest people I know, advocates aggressive management of one’s email store in his new book, “Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and Email Overload.” His advice is to “empty the in-box at least once a day,” arguing that a full in-box “demoralizes users with feelings of overload.” The ideas that each email represents can be relocated to more appropriate contexts — to do lists, or folders in your email client — where they’re less obtrusive.

That’s great advice for many folks, I’m sure. In fact, about a year and a half ago, it was my practice to dutifully empty my in-box regularly, filing away emails in a complicated hierarchy of folders labeled with clients, projects, subject matters, or groupings of some sort. But, I soon came to realize that, for me anyway, it was more work than reward.

Today, I use Apple’s Mail program to manage my email, and I keep everything in my in-box, regardless of who sent it, what it’s about, or in what future context I might need it. And I’m much happier.

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