Empty Inbox to Intense Inbox

It's been two months since I cleared the lists from my inbox. This effort has succeeded except for a few stragglers to unsubscribe from every few days, though these are tailing off as well. Clearing all the lists out of my inbox has created an interesting side-effect, predictable, but one whose impact I hadn't really thought about. Now that almost all of my e-mail is from people I care about and even at work, things requiring action or at least careful review and understanding, it takes much more time to deal with each message than it used to.

While still appropriate, applying Merlin Mann's three Getting Things Done rules from a recent 43 Folders post:

What does this message mean to me, and why do I care?
What action, if any, does this message require of me?
What’s the most elegant way to close out this message and the nested action it contains?

does not accelerate processing the inbox as much as it did before the cleanup. With lots of junk or marginally useful e-mails, the answers to the first two questions get you quickly to the delete key. Now in most cases, I do care, even if only enough to read the e-mail. In many cases, some type of action is required, even if only a quick response to the sender to answer the e-mail.

This is really all by way of observation. In fact, I think it is a good thing. I am corresponding with friends instead of deleting junk mail and most of what is in my inbox has value to me. But it certainly has changed the feel of working through my e-mail.