In modern life we have way too many inboxes. Most of them are incoming information flows. Just a few of them we actually own and control.
Two simple examples are email inbox and ideas inbox.
Everyone has email. We definitely need to process and react to incoming emails. Yes, some of them provide information we’ve asked for. But let’s face it most emails are from other people to close their needs or just advertisement junk. Processing emails is always reactive work. Thus it’s a clear example of reactive inbox.
Ideas inbox on the other hand gets new items only when you have an idea and wish to note it down. So it’s under your full control. You own when and what appears in owned inbox.
Owned Inboxes
You put information to owned inbox intentionally. This is your place to keep important things to process them later.
Things appear there as you have an insight, thinking through something, or realize you need to do something. Some items in owned inbox are actionable while others are reference materials.
Actionable items may look as a task (e.g. call mom on Saturday), a project (for example, buy a new desk), or an idea (like try Pomodoro method). It doesn’t matter while they are in inbox. The beauty of inbox concept is having no worries until processing it.
Reference materials also could be very different. Those include documents, notes, excerpts, business cards, quotes, and many more.
What is important is the fact that it’s you put those items into inbox because they are important for you.
Reactive Inboxes
Things appear in such inboxes because others push items into them.
Emails, calendar invites, and direct messages are just a tip of an iceberg. We all know about them and there are plenty of strategies how to deal with them.
Also think about group chats you participate in, apps pushing their news inside apps themselves, or any app with read/unread behavior. They all want you to go through those inboxes. They all want your attention and time while in many cases those inboxes give you no value at all.
Be careful with reactive inboxes. The best strategy I have is to minimize and ignore. Minimize the number of such inboxes. Ignore whenever possible.
I encourage you to review your inboxes, identify owned and reactive ones, double check if you actually need all of them, and prioritize processing owned inboxes way over reactive inboxes.