I've always been pretty fanatic about keeping my email inbox cleaned out. As a result, for the past few years, I've deleted diligently and filed fastidiously, and this has worked alright. However, the more email I received, the more I started dumping things into my "To Answer Later" file. This file would soon fill up with 50 to 75 messages that needed to be addressed -- some that required a significant amount of time to deal with (a lengthy form that needed to be filled out for something or other, information that needed to be gathered and emailed back, an article I needed to write and submit, etc.) I made it my goal to deal with my To Answer file on Saturdays. But this stopped working efficiently as the number of emails in the To Answer File grew. Some Saturdays, I wouldn't have time to answer the emails -- which then meant their number was doubled the next week. As a result of not being able to find a big time block to deal with these emails, I'd often miss important deadlines and opportunities. These unanswered and undealt-with messages hung over my head like a dark cloud, constantly making me feel behind and unorganized.