Thanks for the comments, Jason.

After doing this originally a month ago, the number of email in my inbox climbed back up as I logged in very long hours on my grant. So, over the last several days I got it down to one screen again. Monday 10/6 I got it to zero. Empty.

It felt really great. It was nice to not have things there used as reminders for some kind of actions, since that action seldom would be well defined. It is very nice to go through my emails and get them to zero, saving emails in appropriate folders and writing next actions to my context lists on my palm.

I started using tickler files a month ago. Again, a tremendous improvement.

I find that the more clean edges there are, the better I feel. I recommend that everyone try GTD behaviors as they have been recommended in the book, to the letter, at first. Doing them as completely as possible really brings much better relaxation and control.