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What does your SaneBox Score mean?

Your weekly Activity Report shows your SaneBox Score. The score ranges from 0 to 100 and the higher the score, the better you are at processing email.

What does this number mean?

The idea behind the ranking is to give each SaneBox user points for good email behavior and take away points for bad behavior. Your overall count reflects this algorithm. And your particular ranking is meant to nudge users to develop better email habits.

To increase your score, you can do the following:

  1. Process your email the first time you open it (Delete/Archive, Delegate, Defer, Reply). This is the most important factor because it describes how well you are at following Inbox Zero rules.

  2. Declare as much email as possible as unimportant. The key behind Getting Things Done is to focus on the most important thing *right now* and avoid getting distracted by the shiny stuff. In SaneBox parlance, this means that you get penalized for gratuitously making email senders INBOX worthy.

  3. Process more email. Sorry those of you who get less email but we hope you can understand why someone getting 500 emails/day that still gets to Inbox Zero deserves some extra points! But don’t give up, the other 3 rules can overcome this one.

  4. Don’t fidget with your unimportant email. That stuff is unimportant for a reason. We put it in a separate folder so you won’t feel the siren call.

We will be adding to these rules over time, but this gives you a sense of why you are a super star or why you might need to change some of those bad email behaviors.