Unpopular opinion: My 15,000 unread emails ran better than the 5 I kept for a week

I did a test where I refused to archive or delete anything in my Gmail (you know, up to the 15GB limit) and just let it pile up for six months. Meanwhile, I had another account where I religiously kept it at under 50 emails at all times, sorting everything into folders. The messy account actually let me find stuff faster because I just searched instead of guessing which folder I put it in - found an invoice from a guy named Tom in Cleveland in under 10 seconds. Has anyone else noticed that "organized" just means more steps to find your own mess?

2 comments

2 Comments

barbararamirez13d agoTop Commenter

You're lucky your search is that good. I've wasted way more time digging through a messy inbox trying to remember what I called something than just clicking the right folder.

the_nathan12d ago

Folders make sense until you've got 50 of them and forget which one you put something in three months ago. Search just skips all that guesswork entirely. Your inbox sorting system has to be perfect for folders to work, and nobody's that organized all the time.