Ever longed for a tool that could give you feedback on the health of your email inbox? Listen in as I take on the challenge of creating one from scratch.

Here in the second part of LiveLab 02, I continue working with Dr. Michael Einstein by delving into the formulae that would be at the heart of a sound email health calculator.

It's no easy conversation to follow - you will probably need a paper and pencil.

Months before I called Michael, I devised the following formula in my very first attempt.

Score = the sum of:

1. 5.0 max(0, [2 x (total messages-unread messages-tagged messages) [

2. 0.5 x (total messages - unread messages - incomplete tasks recalled)

3. 5.0 x (unread messages - incoming email per day)]/10)

4. minutes spent

This is where our discussion started. It moved quickly and resulted in this formula which we produced in the first part of this episode.
Score = the sum of:

1. (total messages-unread messages-tagged messages) [more importance] "BlindSpot measure"

2. read messages * (age in days -1) [more importance] "Morgue Measure"

3. unread messages/ # incoming email per day [more importance] "Backlog Measure"

4. threaded messages / # total messages [moderate importance]

5. raw threaded messages [high importance]

6. subscription email older than a day / # total messages older than a day [low importance]

We took a break for about a month, then reconvened to record the second part of this episode.

During the discussion, we agreed on the following elements.
Score = the sum of:

1. (total messages-unread messages-tagged messages) [more important]

2a. # read non-subscribed messages * (age in days per message -1) [more important]

2b. # read subscription messages * (age in days per message -1) [more important]

1. incoming email per day / ((#unread subs--sqrd> + #unread nonsubsc) [more important]

3. raw threaded messages - for non-subscribes using geometric growth [high importance]

4. subscription email older than a day / # total messages older than a day [lower importance]

Our next and final conversation didn't take place until 10 months later. It's captured n part 3, episode 59.

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