Another issue for academics has to do with getting tripped up with the very first question in processing stuff in their Inboxes: "What is it?" The reason for this is that much of what academics have to do is read, and reading tends to come in "piles". Thus even though David Allen recommends processing items one item at-a-time, much of what the academic has to contend with in her inbox everyday consists of more than one-page things to do. Thus when someone drops a 50-page article in the inbox that the academic needs to read, when the academic picks it up to ask "What is it?" they may have to read through beyond just the title and sub-title to figure that out. That takes longer than 2 minutes but is often necessary to eliminate reading one really doesn't need (or want) to do. And I bet that there is a tendency among many academics to process reading by not really defining much of it in advance and just dumping it into a "read whenever" folder/pile (which really just equates to a "stuff in here will never get read" folder). Reading, even if it is stapled together, binder-clipped together, or paper-clipped together, it still mentally "feels" like a pile. And piles don't process as easily or as well as pieces of paper. And this may be why so many academics find themselves with growing piles of 'stuff' on the floors and shelves of their offices.