You open your email, read a message, mark it as unread, move on to the next, read it, delete it, read the next, mark it as unread… what a mess.
I’m experimenting with flagging messages in my mailbox rather than leaving them as unread. After a half-week of this, the result is a half-dozen flagged messages that I need to follow up on. One problem with this is that they look lower priority to me than the unread messages that come in on top of them. Another problem is that neither my BlackBerry nor my iPhone support flagging. This approach seems like a nightmare to try to maintain on as many machines as I use on a daily basis.
Perhaps it would help to create a few more smart mailboxes (unread, action, etc.) and start using more viewer windows (one per smart mailbox) to get more focused on the different buckets. Not sure that’s any better than the AppleScript approach for maintainability though.
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Brett adds this Comment:
Although I haven’t embraced GTD to any great extent, I’ve been doing basically what you describe (http://www.ehow.com/[...]gs-done.html) for quite a few years with great success. I do have some dual maintenance from when I access mail from my iPod or Sidekick, but it’s not onerous for me. Having saved search / smart folders is definitely key.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Geof F. Morris adds this Comment:
I follow the Actions/Responses methodology of flagging incoming email. As such, my INBOX stays pretty darn empty. The main issue is in remembering to go back to those two collection points, but then I have a Task to nag me every day. I save it for a time when I feel like wrangling with email, and that makes me better at it.
November 9th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
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November 9th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Mike Taylor adds this Comment:
I agree that there has to be a better way to handle emails especially in Outlook. I know I miss opportunities because of this. I might to respond to it the next day but then I get deluged with new emails. Perhaps that is what Microsoft was going for with their colored categories that seems completely useless to me.
December 13th, 2009 at 12:23 pm