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How do you manage your email?
mwang:
mwang - it's because I've been posting quite a bit of drivel today... :-[ and the post count has been updated since I made that post.
-Darwin (September 05, 2008, 03:42 PM)
--- End quote ---
Looking at the exact same post and it now says 4455, and it suddenly dawn on me that it means the current total you've posted. Gosh! I've always thought the number refers to that very post. (I.e., it's no. xxxx from you.) That's why I felt strange. Silly me.
app103:
I love Gmail because it can keep my inbox clean of everything not important, including most spam.
I use filters a lot. Almost everything is filtered to apply labels.
I use labels a lot. Labels are more powerful than folders, since you can apply multiple labels to a single email rather than just archiving it to a single folder.
When I am on a pc that can handle it, I like the newest interface with the color coded labels.
For example:
I can take digital magazine subscriptions and add a label with the name for each magazine, then color code all magazine labels to be same color, then set a filter to automatically label & archive all the magazines when they come in.
When I feel like reading magazines, I can easily find the labels in the list by looking for the color, then reading the label name to see if that's the one I want.
I can take everything that comes from sources related to my money (paypal, bills, bank, etc) and set up a filter to give them a label each, make all the labels bright red so they jump out at me when I see them in my inbox.
I apply a label of "attachments" to anything that comes in with one, which makes it very easy to see all mail with attachments with a single click of the label name.
Any time I see something in my inbox that doesn't have a label added to it, I try to add some sort of label(s) and set up a filter for it, deciding if this would be something I must have in my inbox when it arrives, or if it can be archived for later when I have more time. Anything archived is never marked as read unless the filter is set up to do that, which is almost never. Labels having unread mail appear in bold in the list with the number of unread mail next to it.
I star everything in my inbox that I have read but need to attend to later. (like maybe a reply, or check a link, or make a phone call) I remove the star when the action is completed.
There are things I keep when I am done reading, there are things I trash too. It depends on if it is something that has a purpose in keeping. I have alerts for stuff that serve no purpose after I have read them & responded. They get trashed after I do.
I keep all sent mail, newsletters, anything I might possibly want to refer to at some other point in the future.
I even keep most of that silly crap people forward me, like jokes. I found a "useful" purpose for it and was glad I did, since a friend's mother sent me a few years worth I can use for daily posting on a website. My friend thought it was a real hoot that I started a website from all his mom's forwarded joke emails. :D
And searching for something in old mail is pretty good in Gmail, so even if I can't remember where I filed it, it's still pretty easy to find.
And I can use a single gmail account as my main account, and make all mail that comes to the rest of my gmail accounts automatically forwarded to the main one and then archived in the original account, label incoming mail with the account name they came from as they arrive. All other filters and labels I have set up will also apply to all of that mail as it comes in. And I can even reply as those email addresses from the main one without having to log out and log into that particular account.
And best of all, since it is webmail, I can access it from any pc (and there is even a mobile version too). It would have been a real bummer when my other pc died to lose access to everything that I had set up, till I had a better pc that could run some particular email client I may have favored on my dead pc, which probably couldn't run on my old slow hunk of junk. And since it is webmail, it's cross-platform too.
(BTW: Gmail mobile & basic html versions have NO ADS!)
Armando:
Most of it is archived into 3 folders (since mid 90s). When emails are more or less from corporations selling stuff and other insignificant content, I delete instantly.
Apart from my inbox in which I receive stuff from ALL my pop3 accounts (I used to separate into 2 different inboxes -- work & personal... Might have to do that again, but not worth it at the moment...), I've got :
1- emails I sent
2- emails I received
3- "Someday, maybe" -- Slightly following GTD. Stuff that I might look at later, when I've got plenty of time.
[EDIT: forget that I have 3 other categories, but almost never use them :
a- Delegate : when I need something to be taken care by someone else (I usually forward instantly, so almost never use that category)
b- Waiting for... (an answer, etc.) : I should use that one more, but I usually just revisit my sent and Inbox folders, and leave my "waiting for stuff" there. It doesn't bother me.
c- Reference : important messages for future reference. Almost never use that anymore. Use X1 to find anything I need...
Anything that's in my Inbox needs to be done, so I don't have a separate "action" folder. I revisit the inbox many times a day as if it was an action list -- urgent or important stuff, I assign a special action/task to.
I tend to suffer from the "Out of sight, out of mind" syndrome, so I try to keep stuff in the same place as much as possible. Same for my tasks/actions, etc. [/Edit]
I don't organize more than that : I receive so much stuff, it would take too much time -- and it's easy to make mistakes (hummmm.... that should be here... where is it!!! I'll take time to tag stuff only if it's going to be important parts -- references, tools -- of very specific projects, etc.) ! I don't use OUtlook or whatever filters either, as that can be achieved with X1 and other software on the fly. Finding anything is easy with desktop search software.
right now, mail gets accumulated in my PST file. One day I might export everything into something else. But I'm not there yet. ;)
Grorgy:
I delete it, some stays on gmail, because i couldn't be bothered deleting it, stuff i bring into outlook, hangs around for a while then is...deleted. If its important then its actioned at the time, but 99.9% of my email is such ephemeral stuff it just isn't worth the complexity of trying to sort it or back it up. When i was working for a large telco at one point it was the same, most, if not all of it, was only of any interest to me for a few hours or days, perhaps a week or 2 then it passes into history. I must say though i regret having lost some of the jokes ;D
app103:
I must say though i regret having lost some of the jokes ;D
-Grorgy (September 06, 2008, 08:19 PM)
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You can have mine. :P
And no clutter in your email inbox or saved mail, either.
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