The #1 life hack to becoming more productive, to becoming respected & trusted by everyone you work with: Responding to every message within seconds or minutes and rarely hours. It is no secret that the world's busiest and most successful people are also the fastest to respond. But how does one become hyper responsive? You adopt a rigorous strategy across all of your messaging surfaces. The goal is to eliminate overall noise, and never have a large pileup of messages such that the mental overhang of responding becomes a problem. Here is my comprehensive personal messaging strategy that I’ve employed in some fashion for over 20 years to be the most responsive person you know. First, some global rules: 1. You will process but not respond to most messages by phone. You will respond to most on your laptop. Why? Touch interface is fast for organizing but keyboard is better for writing. 2. Turn off all group notifications on all apps, on deskop and mobile. Leave unread badges on, and leave notifications on for DMs. 3. You cannot adopt inbox zero progressively. You must simply declare messaging bankruptcy and start from scratch. How? MARK AS READ for all messaging apps, ARCHIVE ALL for email. You won't miss anything I promise. 4. You do not use folders in any app. They will no longer be useful when you have no messaging debt. 5. You aren’t deleting. You are using unread/read as replacements for unfinished/finished. The only place where we remove messages is email (archive to preserve search). Now, app by app strategies: iMessage/Signal: Always first priority, read & respond instantly. Priority not because high signal but because you can’t apply any inbox mgmt strategies. Email: 1. Your inbox is a todo list 2. Read all emails as they come in (but don't reply) 3. Archive anything you don’t need to respond to 4. Use "skip it and archive" filtering for frequent messages (in Gmail, search bar for sender or subject, create a filter rule) 5. Unsubscribe from every newsletter as it comes in. If this isn’t working, you can create a filter. But you need to progressively eliminate spam as a high priority 6. When ready to reply on desktop, hit archive. Keep your inbox clean Slack: 1. In order to clear: click groups with no mentions but don’t read, read & respond to groups with mentions 2. Mute all groups with > 20, you can read on a Saturday if you want 3. Unread DMs, long hold and preview before reading. If easy, respond on phone. If not, leave and respond at desktop Telegram/Whatsapp: 1. Two folders, Unread, and All 2. Mute all groups 3. In order: click in and out of groups with no mentions, then read and respond to groups with mentions 4. Handle DMs last, long hold and preview first. If instant, respond on phone. If not, leave and respond later. 5. Leave groups aggressively, don’t join any channels or social chats > 20 people. If you find yourself in one, leave. X/LinkedIn/Instagram/etc. 1. Allow message requests from verified users 2. A lot of spam but can apply read/unread strategy 3. Read all to get started I know this is lengthy but once you get the basics, you will build a new mental model of how to deal with messages from everywhere. And you will soon have empty inboxes everywhere, allowing you to reply to new ones with tremendous speed.