Email Nirvana June 15th, 2006 by Matt
Well Alex’s winning of the Slashdot redesign contest is doing more for MakaluMedia sales than a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal. Which brings us back to Global Warming, and my email problems.
Even though I still spend way too much time processing emails, a couple of very cool plug-ins for Apple Mail helps keep things manageable.
About a year or so ago, I began to realize I was spending too much time in the simple act of “filing” email messages into a hierarchy of folders. Click-Drag-Drop. Click-Drag-Drop. Over, and over. I ended up addressing this problem by closing my eyes, taking a leap of faith, and flattening my hierarchy of nested mail folders into four:
- @inbox
- @waiting for…
- @holding
- 2006
A couple of times per day, I go through Mail’s inbox, and I immediately file all messages into one of these four folders. Actionable messages (i.e. messages that require me to take some action) go into @inbox. Messages containing things I’m waiting for (like a request for more information) go into @waiting_for… Messages that I want to reply to, but are not high priority, go into @holding. All other messages go into the big 2006 folder (until next year, when I’ll archive this folder, and create 2007.)
Efficient filing of messages is made possible by the Mail Act-On plugin for Apple Mail, which allows the binding of key shortcuts to Mail’s processing rules. I have four shortcuts setup:
- [control]-i sends messages to @inbox
- [control]-w sends messages to @waiting for…
- [control]-h sends messages to @holding
- [control]-a (”a” for archive) sends messages to 2006
Once per day, I go through @inbox, replying to messages that need a reply, creating tasks for myself for messages that require some action, and further filing messages, usually into 2006. My objective is to have @inbox empty at the end of each day.
Periodically (maybe once per week), I review @waiting_for… and @holding.
This system has worked out surprisingly well, and I’ve been quite content with searching for emails in my big 2006 archive, using Spotlight. I would never have thought I could live without a fine grained folder hierarchy.
That said, there are situations in which I would like to see a collection of related mails, grouped together. This problem has now been solved with the addition of Indev’s other email plugin, MailTags.
MailTags allows you to “tag” email messages with one or more keywords, assign mail messages to “projects”, and annotate them with “notes”. (It additionally allows you to create and manage todos in iCal, but as I use Daylite for task management, I’ll skip further discussion of this feature.) Once tagged, assigned and/or noted, related messages can easily and instantly be located through the use of Mail’s Smart Folders, since MailTags adds its meta-structures to Spotlight’s list of search criteria.
I’ve created a tag, “open”, that I assign, through some Keyboard Maestro menu selection magic, to the [control]-o key shortcut. I then assigned this keyboard shortcut to one of my Logitech mouse buttons. So, with a single click of a mouse button, I can tag an email message as “open”, which become instantly included in a Smart Folder I’ve entitled, “Currently Open Issues”. (And, of course, one big advantage to Smart Folders is that a message can simultaneously reside in more than one folder.)
Once an issue or activity is closed, I can select all related messages, and with a control-click immediately remove the “open” tag from them all, at which point they instantly disappear from this Smart Folder.
With MailTags and Smart Folders, the sky is really the limit in terms of useful groupings of email messages. To be honest, I really can’t think of much more I could ask for, except maybe less mail!
BTW, if you use Act-On or MailTags, please considering a PayPal donation to Scott, to help support his additional development of these useful plugins.
June 16th, 2006 at 1:40 am
Fantastic overview of your e-mail system, which has me completely GREEN with envy. Being a Windows / Thunderbird user, I don’t have the cool plugins to make a system like yours work for me, but boy do I wish I did!
I’m off to hunt for a Win/Thunder solution like yours. :)
June 28th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Turbo Charging My E-mail With GTD
Yesterday I wrote about the process I went through to migrate from multiple e-mail accounts to just one ubur inbox. The new system is definitely an improvement, but there were a few snags that kept me from reaching a true state of e-mail bliss. The chi…
April 15th, 2007 at 8:13 am
Interesting comments.. :D