Continuum does the trick for you.

So declaring email bankruptcy is not possible for most of us. Truly speaking nobody can declare email bankruptcy. So the alternate solution is get a tool to manage the mails, convert them into activities and remind us when the activities are due.

I am not talking fluff.
Continuum converts emails/SMS into activities and gives insight into the business.

All that needs to be done is carbon-copy (aka CC:) email to a common mailing address. The system picks it up and converts it into an activity. This is very helpful when documents are to be reviewed and certified in a big organization (at least 10-12 people have to review a document before it becomes final!). Continuum keeps track of the document to the reviewed and the people to be reviewed by. It will remind the people involved of the approaching due date. Document will be automatically versioned and labeled. All you need to do is after the due date, go and compare the versions and collate the changes. Your inbox will not have ten thousand copies of the document sitting, waiting to be opened and read.

Your inbox looks neat and tidy!
Pat yourself on the back for being such a good guy/gal!

Email bankruptcy

Recently I came across the phrase "Email bankruptcy". Sounds interesting! My email account has almost 3500 mails in the inbox. Am I ever going to read or reply to them? I don't think so... it's beyond my capacity to even read each and every mail. I just look at the title and judge if its worth opening or not.

So declaring email bankruptcy sounds interesting to me. Basically you have to sent an email to every "worth-keeping" contact and state that in case he/she had ever sent something important which required my attention, please send me the mail again as I am declaring email bankruptcy. And after that all I have to do is delete my 3500 odd emails from the inbox. Sounds simple. But believe me it takes lot of courage and patience to delete all your mails from your inbox. They are like those old things sitting in your closet which you don't need but never have the guts or heart to throw them out. So I still haven't deleted my emails! What if I ever need them? I don't think I would since I never needed then for past 2-3 years. Archiving is one option but that's cheating yourself. You are just moving them from one mail box to another folder. Moreover so you can't even search on archived mails.

Have you noticed these online email providers, don't want you to delete the mails. They give you lots and lots of space (in GB) and if you have noticed, you can never delete more than a pageful of mails. So think about how many pages do I have to delete before I empty my inbox.

Stuck in this quandary, I still wait for the day, when I will have the guts and the heart to declare the so called "Email Bankruptcy".