Hi! Does anyone know if there’s a documented history of the feature commonly known as “Inbox”? Does anyone have any reading suggestions on this topic? Thanks!
For clarity, I do not think ‘Inbox’ is a design feature of Tinderbox. However, it may likely be a structural element added for some workflow(s).
So, any history of that is likely to be in documentation—if any—of those workflows rather than in formal TB Help or in aTbRef as these only cover Tinderbox features. For instance, it might be covered in some of the meet-up videos. Knowing the workflow9s) in question might aid tracking down such context.
I believe it’s simply a generalization of a common piece of office furniture.
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This is literally it, and it making a natural fit for email as the software version of inter-office mail - but are you looking at a more GTD-style ‘accumulator’ than routing system, @dominiquerenauld ? It’s a fascinating question and bit of technical archaeology ahead! I remember xbiff when I first used grown-up computers, so the US mailbox metaphor was there from a long way back.
According to the OED, “embox” or sometimes “inbox” is first cited in 1570. To put in a box.
“In-box” in the sense of a place to put letters to be processed, and then placed in the “out-box”, dates to 1958. In the decades before that we had “in-basket / out-basket”, “in-tray / out-tray”, “pending tray”, “pending basket”.
More close to today’s usage, the OED cites the ACM in 1977 with " Incoming messages are appended to a special ‘inbox’ file." (Communications ACM vol. 20 vi. 2, for those who collect old ACM publications in their personal inboxes).
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Thank you all for these reading suggestions. I started asking myself this question after realizing how much I use this tool, whether with paper notes or digital features like Things’ Inbox. When I don’t know where to file an idea, I put it in a temporary holding area, and I’m drawn to the idea that this holding area is a system function. Who knows why? There would be an interesting clinical study to be done there. How do you feel when you put an idea in an inbox?
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Indeed.
In analog life, there was the sense that work appeared in an inbox, was processed, and put into an outbox ready for the next step in a process. Physical inboxes were temporary holding areas. In some (most?) cases to reduce desktop clutter and ease retrieval.
In digital life, my email inbox has 44,000 messages in it, accumulated over 20 years, because it is both long-term and temporary storage. (Several hundred thousand message have come and gone and were not retained in that inbox) Other than email, my own practice with digital data is to never use inboxes.
[Edit: added missing footnote]
In the original sense, we don’t put anything in our in-try/basket/pigeonhole. Rather the latter is where new things arrive. If you have a choice upstream of that point to decide where inbound things go, then you’re arguably not using an inbox so much as using a container ‘called’ inbox for want of a better name. Likely its a triage stage.
Over decades of consulting on systems from personal through to corporate, email inboxes are used both as in the ‘arrival’ location (as above) and a come-in handy filing system. Why? Because for many, (a) once an item has been filed into a triage folder it’s often as good as lost, (b) search in the inbox is often better† than the available company/personal databases, etc. Just as the spatial hypertext of a Tinderbox ma exploits position as an expressive tell-back,
†. Consider how few people know that web pages have in-page Find (Cmd+F). Also the ability to find things to some extend reflects the thought that when into file-naming, tagging/metadata and thieir original filing. In mant cases, not much.
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It’s been more than a couple of decades since I’ve worked in a physical “office” environment, but as has been noted, the person on whose desk the “Inbox” rests doesn’t put anything into that box. Others do, subordinates usually. (Superiors would just lay it straight on your desk, or hand it to you in their office.) Depending on your position within the organization, perhaps you have the privilege of an administrative aid or secretary who screens all the things people send to your inbox.
If you don’t, then it’s just a huge catch-all that others often use to shirk work. “Action passed is action taken.” An insidious adjunct to that behavior was to stick the unwanted item down in the pile, so it would appear as though it had been delivered at some point earlier in the past. (Physical inboxes are last-in-first-out stacks.) Inboxes were also commonly known as places “where work goes to die,” which is why superiors never placed anything in a subordinate’s inbox.
Another unfortunate aspect would be an underling who allowed work to pile up and then suddenly became productive and a huge bolus of administrivia would arrive in your inbox, requiring some level of attention, often up against a deadline.
I was fortunate enough in my last job to have an administrative aid who reviewed incoming admin, returned work that was incomplete or deficient in some way, prioritized the rest and maintained a “tracker” to ensure the boss didn’t miss a deadline.
But, in general, my “feelings” about my inbox ranged from despair to rage, though that was hugely mitigated by having the assistant.
I have no love for inboxes. No fond memories.
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“Did you write that report I asked for?”
“What report?”
“I left it on your desk.”
“Where?”
“Next to your coffee.”
“When?”
“Last week. When you were out of town.”
“When did you need it?”
“Now. I’m on my way to discuss it with the director.”
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If you need a break, you just put (most of) the contents in the internal mail back to yourself.
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Good point — having the “Inbox” as a kind of temporary holding ground does make sense sometimes. I’ve used Tinderbox that way too: when I’m mulling over ideas but not ready to file them properly, I toss them in the inbox and revisit later. It keeps my workspace tidy and lets me work without pressure. Kind of like “brain-parking” thoughts until I know where they belong.