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Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: superboyac on September 04, 2008, 06:34 PM
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What a great question, right? I am very curious how all of you experienced users manage your boat loads of email. I want to hear the whole philosophy: rules, filters, tags, categories, flags, whatever you use to sort through the volume.
As much of a computer nut as I am, you'd think I have a solid organizing philosophy for email. I really don't. I have a bunch of rules setup, but now that I think about it, it's kind of chaotic and not very efficient. So I'm wondering how you guys do it.
What happens to incoming mail? Do you archive, do you delete when you're done?
Personally, I haven't deleted anything (that wasn't spam) since 1996. Email is personal history, I keep it all. But I should organize it better and it should be more automated.
Also, if you know of any good url's to articles already written about this, please share!
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I use Outlook 2007 (and before that 2003 and before that 2000...) and organize my mail into folders using Rules. If you're by any chance looking for a Spam solution, I can recommend Spambayes (http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/windows.html)... I love it and it's free!
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No, no, Darwin, you don't get off that easy! No, this is not about spam; this is about the real stuff. So, what are your rules? What's the philosophy behind it?
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I use Thunderbird and my 5 accounts (soon to be 3, email accts are a bi7ch) all go into a single inbox. I imagine I will eventually have to do my own spam protection (probably spam assassin (http://spamassassin.apache.org/), <3 perl) as the email accounts are hosted with my domain, and their spam protection is a tad too aggressive.
Ehtyar.
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Please, people, I don't mean to be rude, but this isn't about spam.
Ehtyar, I use The Bat!, and I think one of the great strengths of The Bat is it's ability to handle multiple email accounts relatively painlessly. Check it out.
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I prefer the single inbox idea actually. I can't really see the point of multiple inboxes; I can see which account the email went to. Thunderbird will, however, allow you to specify a folder in which to place email from each individual account.
I wouldn't use The Bat! as it's closed source, Thunderbird is open source, and provides excellent extensions, including GPG/PGP support.
[shameless plug]Thunderbird 3b1 (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Thunderbird_3.0b1) out soon[/url][/shameless plug]
Ehtyar.
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Sorry about introducing the S*** topic :-[ It was meant as an aside (and I should have labelled it as such).
Anyway, I organize the e-mail from my 8 e-mail addresses first into folders by subject/category and then into folders by e-mail account. I have rules that do this for me. Note, though, that Outlook applies the rules in order (and of course, as far as I can tell, won't let you rearrange the order that the rules are applied in >:() so I have all of my "category" rules set to run before my E-mail account specific rules. Thus, I might get an e-mail to my Yahoo! account that relates to UltraEdit and another that is from a friend. The "UltraEdit" rule moves the Ultraedit mail to my Ultraedit folder (which is a subfolder of my "Software" folder) but leaves the e-mail from my friend. Outlook goes through the rest of the rules and when it gets to "Yahoo" moves my friend's e-mail into my Yahoo folder.
I use EZDetach to get rid of large attachments and thus have stopped archiving my messages. I"m going to go back to doing so, though. NB DetachPipe is probably a better choice for detaching attachments but I found that out AFTER I bougth a licence for EZDetach. The one feature that makes DetachPipe more attractive to me is its ability to remove an attachment and recognize it, so that the next time the same attachment is "seen" it is simply deleted and a link to the previously saved attachment is inserted into the e-mail. EZDetach simply renames the duplicate attachemts resulting in much larger archives. I've written to the developer to request the DetachPipe solution be adopted but nothing has happened so far (though I did get a response indicating that it was "going on the list"). Otherwise, EZDetach is brilliant. I opted for it over DetachPipe initially because of licensing policy differences...
Not sure what else to include here, but will add more as it occurs to me...
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Just to clarify, my inbox is organized into Folders by e-mail address for "general" e-mail (like the imaginary one from my imaginary friend above) and into specific folders for different categories. Thus, I have a folder called Software that contains subfolders for receipts, registration keys, newsletters and so on. Any relevant e-mail gets shunted in here (wherever it belongs) regardless of what e-mail account it is received through... Whatever is left over in the Inbox after the "specific" rules have run gets shifted to the e-mail specific folders at the end of the rule filtering "cycle".
What can I say? It works and I am comfortable with it. It's pretty simplistic, though!
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I use Outlook 2007 both at home and work, but the way I handle my email at each location is very different.
I work for a fairly large company (4300+ employees) and there are policies and procedures put in place by our IT department (at the direction of our Legal department) that dictate how our email is handled. Each week, email in our Inbox and Sent folders that are older than about 2 months are purged and moved to a temporary trash can. We can retrieve those messages during the next week, but then they are gone. Email that we have filed into folders (either by moving it there or by the use of rules) is similary purged if it is older than 18 months. Same deal applies - we can retrieve it during the following week, and then it's gone.
The whole process is built around corporate document retention policies that take into account what can be considered "corporate records". Implicit in the policy are considerations about legal "discovery" procedures, etc. We are unable to archive email, move it into folders outside of Outlook, etc.
I do move email into folders according to projects, or topics, or by organization. I manage an R&D program and do a lot of projects with universities, national labs, consultants, etc. I do use some rules (for newsletters and other regular bulk mail), but for the most part I manually move email into folders. I also make pretty regular use of Outlooks ability to convert email into calendar appointments and tasks.
One product I have used for several years that I have found very useful is Nelson Email Organizer (NEO) http://www.caelo.com/index.php
Makes it easy to see email from a particular sender (no matter what folder it's in), see all attachments, find by date, etc. Also has some easy ways to make rules.
At home I use a similar process, but use a lot more rules. I also don't have to worry about how long I keepstuff. We get a lot of email related our kids' school, shopping, banking and investments, books, newsletters, etc - so most of that stuff is handled by rules. With earlier versions of Outlook I used a spam filter (using whitelists) called Qurb. http://www.qurb.com/ It looks like they were bought by CA.
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http://www.43folders.com/izero
Inbox zero is a good base to start with if you haven't heard of it.
I haven't been doing this but I'm sure I can make it work. (I'm currently dealing with my bookmark problem)
Set a review schedule of your own choice. The longer the time, the longer the review time.
Ex.
If you review your e-mails once a week, then set a day per week to organize everything.
A month? Then set a week.
A year? Then set a month and so on and so forth.
Basically on this review day, make it a priority to remove every e-mail in your inbox to another section be it a tag or a folder. Skim it only. Don't read it thoroughly, click on any external links or attachment or reply to any e-mail.
Since you're doing this, you want a folder where it's e-mails you urgently want to reply to.
An even better section if you have tons of this is to have a section for the e-mails you want to reply to and the e-mails you need to reply to but only make this for urgent e-mails. You'll see why later on.
So you've emptied your inbox. Now every review time, do this. It should be easier because you have less e-mails.
Now here's where the different categories help. Because each e-mails are separated into each categories, you can now get yourself into a reading groove without jumping from topic to topic. This means those tons of e-mails you have is now no different than a webpage you haven't read. Sure, it's still needs to be read but now it has one theme so now you can read it at your own pace without feeling pressured. It's like a book only in e-mail format. It also means you'd get to read more e-mails because you know what to expect and you are interested within that reading time frame.
Now with the exception of the urgent e-mails, switch the date of the entries to oldest first. This makes it more interesting to you because you don't feel like you're reading through old stuff the more you get through. Every item you are reading in that category is getting newer and newer so there's more incentive for you to get to the end of your e-mails and it doesn't feel like you're just cleaning up on old stuff.
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I filter my mails by ListId into subfolders: "if ListId contains whatever move mail to INBOX.whatever". This keeps the mails from the many mailing lists under control, and my INBOX does not fill up as quickly. Certain senders' emails are silently deleted, I won't even get a notice of their deletion.
After this, SpamAssassin goes through the new mails, deleting those which seem junk. I do not care about false positives because in case of mailing lists there often is a reply quoting the important parts of the email.
Because I have five accounts set up in my email program, and the folder structure is quite extended I make use of the "Unread Folders" view the program offers: only folders with unread messages are shown.
I ignore the sender's priority setting. It is I who decides when to read an email, if I read it at all. I do not read all the emails, and reply to even fewer, although I would have something to say to most.
My mail program is, of course, Thunderbird. :Thmbsup:
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Two main POP3 accounts + (client based) whitelisting.
Everything gets deleted as soon as it's read/responded to. Stuff that can't be dealt with on the spot goes into Drafts and gets deleted as soon as it's dealt with. Anything worth saving is Cut&Pasted (oh well!) into my organizer.
I like to keep it clean clean clean! :D
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Ah yes - forgot about the Unread Messages view. Indispensible :Thmbsup: I have it set to display my messages organized by folders...
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I delete everything from inbox immediately, unless I need to do it (keep in inbox to remind myself), or I know I'll need it later (reference), or it's taken care of by automated filters. First I wanted to keep all my email in case i needed it. Now I know that i won't need 50% of all work email when i get it so jsut goes in the bin. I always sort my inbox so that it's not more than one sometimes two screens, if i can't filter it i delete it. if i done it i delete it.
With home mail, gmail makes it harder to delete it as it promotes archiving, so i use archive instead, and clean up any crap mail after i read through search results for something (when you find 20 mails regarding a lost password that you know you changed and written down for example).
I do explicitly not use the unread messages view because i rather clean up and delete from inbox, that way my search results are better.
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For the life of me, I don't understand why anyone would want to keep deleting email vs archiving.
But there are a lot of great ideas here. dspelley, I like that Outlook plugin, I'll have to check it out.
I'm also going to search for some GTD methods that have to do with email management.
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I also keep all my mail since the mid 90s, sans spam. I started out with Eudora and Agent, then OE, The Bat, Becky and now Thunderbird. (Tried Opera's M2 once, but it handled Chinese mail poorly.)
It used to be a pain to switch mail client, for converting mail database was difficult, especially when many MUA didn't really adhere to standards.
Now I no longer worry about such things, for I have a mail server for myself, on a Linux box. With IMAP, I can now retrieve mail with whatever mail client I like at the moment. I use mostly Thunderbird, but Becky still does certain things better.
I use a 3-account sets for regular mail, one public (A) and two private (B & C). A is just a front. When mail for A arrives, my server deliver it to B & C. B is for regular uses. I keep a small part of mail on it, filed into relevant folders -- family, office, etc. Most messages are discarded after being read and dealt with. Old kept messages are regularly purged. So Account B is always mean and lean, with important recent mail I could find easily.
Account C is for archive. Outgoing messages are bcc'ed to C as well. C keeps everything, one folder per year, and the folders are duplicated by Thunderbird in local folders on my desktop. They not only serve as backups (though the server is regularly backed up, too), but also allow Archivarius to index them. When I couldn't find an old message on account B, I search with Archivarius, which is very fast!
Spam is dealt with on the server, too, with Spam Assassin, which is pretty good for larger servers, but even better for a dedicated server, for it can be trained and configured very precisely.
I also create other accounts when I need to register an email address with some online service, but don't want to get spam. Mail to those addresses is never really delivered.
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Ah yes - forgot about the Unread Messages view. Indispensible :Thmbsup: I have it set to display my messages organized by folders...
-Darwin
You also forgot to check the number of posts you have created...
- this was number 4444 !!!!
Keep them coming, Darwin! :up:
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You also forgot to check the number of posts you have created...
- this was number 4444 !!!!
-Curt
Hmmm, here DC says it's post no. 4453 from Darwin. Not that I have any problem with either amount though. Keep them coming indeed.
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I use Opera M2. Great productivity tool -as long as you don't need PGP-. Does IMAP fine.
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Heh, heh, thanks Curt (this one's for you!).
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.
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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
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.
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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!)
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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. ;)
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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
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I must say though i regret having lost some of the jokes ;D
-Grorgy
You can have mine (http://readmyemail.blogspot.com). :P
And no clutter in your email inbox or saved mail, either.
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At one stage, I did a lot of sorting, filtering, creating and refining rules for everything including spam.
Like a few others, I've largely given that up. Took a lot of time for little real gain.
I do have a folder for 'Needs Action (but I'm not doing it now)'.
For everything else I just use the Search - either within the prog or using Mailstore.
I do use a lot of email clients having my fingers burnt in the past when one crashed with some emails lost. Problem could usually be resolved in the end, but there was at least temporary lack of access to some emails. These include Opera, Do-Organiser, Spicebird, Thunderbird, Courier and TheBat!. I occasionally download into Outlook; I just use Do-organizer when it is open to see if there is anything new. I store old emails in Courier, TheBat!, Thunderbird and Spicebird. Main client atm is TheBat!.
The one thing I do intend to change in the near future is too filter all my email through my Gmail accounts as its spam filtering seems to be better than anything else I have running. And without any work from me. The one bit of sorting I have to do now is to take stuff out of my ISP's Junk folder because it isn't spam. I don't have this problem with gmail, so I'll be able to turn off the spam filter at the ISP.
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The one thing I do intend to change in the near future is too filter all my email through my Gmail accounts as its spam filtering seems to be better than anything else I have running. And without any work from me. The one bit of sorting I have to do now is to take stuff out of my ISP's Junk folder because it isn't spam. I don't have this problem with gmail, so I'll be able to turn off the spam filter at the ISP.
-Dormouse
I agree with you here. Gmail's spam filtering seems to be working pretty well. That + Outlook : works good.
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OK, I use the Bat at home which has much cooler rules, filters, and coloring features, but now at work I am using Outlook 2007. So here is my method, based on the GTD philosophy.
GTD is all about being fast, efficient and productive. With email, especially at work where I get a lot of email, it is not really productive to be moving things around in a lot of folders and categories, etc. For myself, even for different projects, I'm not going to bother making several different folders for the different projects. I really don't need to have all the specific project emails have their own folder, because organizing that is a pain in the ass and there's no good rule system to do it automatically, because often there is no particular data in an email/task that distinguishes it from one project or another. So I'm not going be moving things around manually...no way.
So, everything comes into my Inbox and that's where all the action takes place. I've set of some GTD search folders. I use search folders because they are not actual folders, just filtered views. This way, all the mail stays in the Inbox but I can use the search folders to look at only what I want (like Virtual Folders in the Bat). The GTD search folders are:
--Do
--Respond
--Delegate
--Defer
--Archive
--Done Items
As soon as I get emails, I will look at it and immediately categorize it (using keyboard shortcuts of course). Once they are categorized, they will automatically be detected by the search folders above. So, the only items that will require effort on my part are those in the Do, Respond, and Delegate folders. I go into those folders to see this list of mails. As I finish each email, I check it off as "Done" and it automatically gets removed from those folders and into the Done Items folder. That's pretty much it. It's quick, efficient, and sophisticated.
As an additional level of prettiness, I take advantage of Automatic Formatting in Outlook 2007 (the one in the Bat is WAY better). With this, if I look in my Inbox with the all the emails in all categories all mixed together, then this automatic formatting gives me a nice visual way to see things. So, the items in the specific GTD categories are colored according to their category color. I also have appointments/tasks/meetings italicized to distinguish them from emails.
So, that's basically it. It's nice I think. I like being efficient.
(what happened to that one post about Groupwise?? I was looking for it)
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OK, I use the Bat at home which has much cooler rules, filters, and coloring features, but now at work I am using Outlook 2007. So here is my method, based on the GTD philosophy.
GTD is all about being fast, efficient and productive. With email, especially at work where I get a lot of email, it is not really productive to be moving things around in a lot of folders and categories, etc. For myself, even for different projects, I'm not going to bother making several different folders for the different projects. I really don't need to have all the specific project emails have their own folder, because organizing that is a pain in the ass and there's no good rule system to do it automatically, because often there is no particular data in an email/task that distinguishes it from one project or another. So I'm not going be moving things around manually...no way.
So, everything comes into my Inbox and that's where all the action takes place. I've set of some GTD search folders. I use search folders because they are not actual folders, just filtered views. This way, all the mail stays in the Inbox but I can use the search folders to look at only what I want (like Virtual Folders in the Bat). The GTD search folders are:
--Do
--Respond
--Delegate
--Defer
--Archive
--Done Items
As soon as I get emails, I will look at it and immediately categorize it (using keyboard shortcuts of course). Once they are categorized, they will automatically be detected by the search folders above. So, the only items that will require effort on my part are those in the Do, Respond, and Delegate folders. I go into those folders to see this list of mails. As I finish each email, I check it off as "Done" and it automatically gets removed from those folders and into the Done Items folder. That's pretty much it. It's quick, efficient, and sophisticated.
As an additional level of prettiness, I take advantage of Automatic Formatting in Outlook 2007 (the one in the Bat is WAY better). With this, if I look in my Inbox with the all the emails in all categories all mixed together, then this automatic formatting gives me a nice visual way to see things. So, the items in the specific GTD categories are colored according to their category color. I also have appointments/tasks/meetings italicized to distinguish them from emails.
So, that's basically it. It's nice I think. I like being efficient.
(what happened to that one post about Groupwise?? I was looking for it)
-superboyac
Nice.
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I use Outlook 2007 and have always saved important (to me ) emails, some with very large attachments. Eventually the *.pst becomes enormous and unmanagable, and takes Outlook forever to open unless they are archived in groups and save as separate pst files which can be stored and backed up. For example, create a personal folder file called "My emails from 1_2001 to 12_2004.pst" and another as "My emails from 1_2005 to 12_2007.pst".
In my case, the average size of the backed up pst files described above is 1 gig to 2.8 gigs.
Using the Outlook/File/Data File Management/Data Files tab, you can point to the default pst file (e.g. a pst file that contains all emails from 2007 to the present) that opens by default with Outlook. However, at any given time, you can open a previous pst archive, as needed.
Here's the key to the kingdom. Using the program X1, which is not free but worth every penny, one can maintain an index of all the mail in the old pst files and even MS Exschange files (i.e. *.ost files) and instantly locate and open an old email without having it as the active or default pst file in Outlook. One can search by name of sender, or receiver, or attachment file type and all manner of wild card combinations.
For anyone that manages or searches humungous piles of emails ranging from the recent past to the very distant past, this is a friggin' awesome system.
Note of caution: Be sure to backup the original pst file before embarking on the Outlook archiving feature if you are not familiar with it. I searched the web and found some helpful articles which describe exactly how to do it. I deleted the links or I would have attached them.
p.s. I have always been shackled to Outlook, for business reasons only. However, once you learn, it is relativley simple. Don't overlook the power X1. I have tried many other software products that pretend to manage Outlook mail, and have not found anything better than groups of pst files indexed by X1.
p.p.s. This virtually eliminates the need to categorize anything.
p.p.p.s I use X1 only for Outlook email. I use Locate32 and dtSearch for most other desktop file searching requirements.
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superboyac : I edited the post where I explained how I manage my emails... Your post reminded me of 3 categories/folders I almost never use. :-[
The fact is : I don't have much to delegate, not much to refer to (I use x1)... I do use the "waiting for..." one quite a bit though.
For important emails that I need to respond to but need to defer I'll often just create a special task/todo. I like to have all important stuff in ONE and only ONE place... OK, maybe 2 : Task-todo list (containing next actions, really), and calendar.
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(what happened to that one post about Groupwise?? I was looking for it)
-superboyac
weird, it's gone -EDIT/ do you mean the one on the Outlook2007 thread ?? Yes, I see you found it ...
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=14721.msg128680#msg128680
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Thanks for clearing that up, Tom (I had been wondering myself...) :Thmbsup:
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superboyac : I edited the post where I explained how I manage my emails... Your post reminded me of 3 categories/folders I almost never use. :-[
The fact is : I don't have much to delegate, not much to refer to (I use x1)... I do use the "waiting for..." one quite a bit though.
For important emails that I need to respond to but need to defer I'll often just create a special task/todo. I like to have all important stuff in ONE and only ONE place... OK, maybe 2 : Task-todo list (containing next actions, really), and calendar.
-Armando
Yes, it seems like you and I think alike about a lot of things! But I thought you were a big fan of Archivarius? How come you are using X1? I haven't used X1 in over a year, but I totally preferred Archivarius over it. Let me know, because I totally forgot that I can use an indexer, so I'm probably going to set one up soon to use with Outlook.
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I've found a little utility called Poppy for Windows to be worth it's weight in gold. I can preview and optionally kill anything before it gets to my local mailbox, so only what I want gets downloaded. The real beauty of the thing is its simplicity. It's also the only tray/popup notifier I've ever used that works reliably and doesn't cause problems on my machine. Other mail apps may do more - but this little guy does exactly what I want.
Download it here: http://www.jsonline.nl/Content/Poppy/Poppy.htm
A design goal of Poppy was to keep it as simple as possible. Only the most essential features were added to Poppy to make it easy to use without all kinds of bells and whistles. This approach also contributes to the fact that Poppy is small and will not interfere with your day to day work.
Initially, the only purpose of Poppy was e-mail notification. Since the introduction of version 4.x of Poppy. I decided to add more advanced features. Poppy is still very small however and the new features do not interfere with it's main purpose, which is still be e-mail notification.
Here is a list of the features of Poppy:
* Checks multiple POP3 accounts for new mail.
* Uses the taskbar icon to indicate that mail is waiting.
* A configurable interval between checks of the POP3 account.
* A a convenient popup menu to reach all functions and configuration.
* Play a sound when new mail has arrived on any account.
* Play a different sound for each account.
* Execute an external program when new mail has arrived.
* Show a non-interfering popup window when new mail has arrived.
* Automatically hide the popup window, without user intervention.
* Always notify or only when new mail has arrived.
* Always notify or only when mail from a friend has arrived.
* Dialog to display 'From' address and subject of each message.
* View the headers of an e-mail message.
* Preview the source of an e-mail message.
* Delete e-mail messages from POP3 servers.
* Select and/or unselect messages based on selection rules.
* Only notify based on the selection rules.
* Check e-mail headers against an anti-SPAM DNS blacklist.
* Option to automatically delete SPAM messages
* It is small and easy to use.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
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Poppy sounds cool, didn't know about it. Nice!
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Short version:
I delete as much as I can. Drag stuff to the calendar or task list. Save each project in its own directory and save reference material in subject directories. I work the task list and calendar and keep the inbox empty. I, too, use Allen's GTD system.
Long version:
I believe it's real important to delete stuff. The more stuff I delete the easier it is to find the reference and project material I've filed. An empty inbox makes me happy.
I don't trust the outlook file system for project data and reference material. Almost all undeleted email is saved to its project directory or its reference directory on my usb drive. A macro builds a filename from some of the mail fields and saves the file as a *.msg file (which preserves attachments).
Email comes in through the company Exchange server. The admins are great. Only three or four commercial spams per year get through. I do still have a bozo bin rule for two or three inside people and one or two subject lines that are annoying.
The first wholesale deletion is email that is not sent directly to me. I have a saved view that shows my inbox "grouped by recipient". I don't like the preview window--too big-- but I display the first couple dozen characters of the message field. Only a few cc's and "All department" mails are _not_ deleted.
I then toggle the view to my standard "group by sender". I delete mail from my boss and his boss if it is trivial or not worth keeping. If there's a quick response I do it and then go back to processing my in basket. Otherwise, I drag the mail to the task folder. If the action is going to involve other people or analysis time, or is a multistep process. I click a macro button that gives the task a project name and marks it as a project task. Another macro creates tasks with the same project name and I note the specific action I will need to perform. Then I go back to processing my in basket. Later, when I group tasks by project name (BillingInformation) each project and its related actions are in the same group.
If the mail is something I want to keep and refer to later, I try not to keep it. I delete it if the "refer to later" is only a "might" or "maybe". Otherwise I then click the macro that names and saves mail to the file system. If a directory for the reference does not yet exist, I reconsider saving it or, rarely, create a new reference directory. Oh, yeah, training information I post to my calendar on the Friday before three-day weekends and the week between Christmas and New Year.
After mail from my boss and his boss, I do the other mail pretty much the same way. The end result is an empty email basket and one list of tasks to do. I have only two priority levels: 1)doit, and 2)maybe do it someday. I just scan the doit and choose by judgment.
This is pretty much the email part of the GTD system. There are other steps and techniques that don't deal directly with email.
References:
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen $9 paperback.
Read the first two or three chapters and then the summary pages of the rest of the chapters. Then start. I had planned to go parallel with my Franklin Planner for two months, but dropped the Franklin Planner after ten days.
Palm organizer - How David uses his Item #: 60603 Disclose email address and download.
http://www.davidco.com/store/catalog/Free-Articles-p-1-c-254.php
I used a palm pilot and sync by cable to outlook 2003 until network security upgrades broke the palm pilot syncing. Outlook Web access to the exchange server has replaced this for me. My blackberry is pretty much used as read only. I don't trust its syncing.
GTD and Outlook 2003 Item #: 10130 $15
http://www.davidco.com/store/catalog/Learning-Tools-and-Whitepapers-p-1-c-263.php
This paper has good advice on how to ignore most of the task fields, how to use notes and calendar with Allen's system. After following the advice of this paper for a couple of months I wrote macros for repetitive actions. Allen and others sells outlook add-ins, but the trial versions didn't work smoothly. Most of the free macros posted on the web don't match my work style.
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e712 - wow! Your system cool and efficient and I've gleaned a number of pointers from it that I am going to start implementing (dragging e-mail to Tasks is a great tip - I've done it before, but never thought of it as an organizational and time management technique) :Thmbsup:
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This may be so obvious that I'm almost afraid to post it.
Print and file paper hardcopy of any email you absolutely can't afford to lose.
I have a group of folders in a file drawer next to my desk with all my client e-correspondence. I don't try to get too fancy with it. It's just a simple chronological file with the most recent item on top. I can usually find anything in that file in less than a minute despite the fact that there's about two reams worth of paper sitting there.
I'm only mentioning this because I'm amazed at the number of times I get called in to recover specific messages and attachments from a crashed server or desktop message store after a so-called "backup" turned out to be useless. I've also had it happen to me. That's why I never completely trust backups.
I have one client that has 3+ years worth of contracts, letters of agreement, and other legal stuff crucial to his business. They are all emails and attachments that exist nowhere other than his Outlook message store. I keep telling him to print out anything that he can't afford to lose. His reply is that he "hates to waste paper" and he has "everything backed up so there's really no need to print anything out."
I'm waiting for his panicky call some morning. It's only a matter of time... :(
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This may be so obvious that I'm almost afraid to post it.
Print and file paper hardcopy of any email you absolutely can't afford to lose.
-40hz
No. It's excellent advice - a lesson that I learned the hardway...
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This may be so obvious that I'm almost afraid to post it.
Print and file paper hardcopy of any email you absolutely can't afford to lose.
-40hz
No. It's excellent advice - a lesson that I learned the hardway...
-Darwin
Unless it's something that I can automate, I ain't doing it. I'm against all this paper stuff. But if it could be automated to where it prints all my important emails once a week, I'd be ok with that.
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This is my point of view too. I believe that if you've got sufficient redundancy (good backup system), these things (loose all emails/files etc.) should absolutely not happen.
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I've found a little utility called Poppy for Windows to be worth it's weight in gold. I can preview and optionally kill anything before it gets to my local mailbox, so only what I want gets downloaded. The real beauty of the thing is its simplicity. It's also the only tray/popup notifier I've ever used that works reliably and doesn't cause problems on my machine.
-40hz
40hz,
You might like to compare Poppy with Magic Mail Monitor (http://mmm3.sourceforge.net/), though MMM's focus leans more towards deleting spam. Seems reliable to me, on Win98 at that 8)
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Aram and Armando - either you misunderstood 40hz or I did! I think that suggesting that any e-mail you can't afford to lose be printed and kept as hardcopy is excellent advice. My understanding of this is that particular e-mail messages, like the last message your grandmother sent to you before she passed away or a nasty exchange of e-mail with a colleague that you have filed a complaint against, be backed up in hard copy. Everything else trust to your electronic archive. As I said, I learned this the hardway as I have a bunch of e-mail black holes in my archive: everthing from 1994 t0 2000, everything from 2000 to 2006, everything from mid-2006 to November 2007... This includes every e-mail my grandmother ever wrote to me before she passed away in 2000 :( >:(
So, I'm not advocating printing EVERYTHING, just those messages that you really want to keep.
NB It probably IS easier to keep everything now without printing to paper: in the past two years Hotmail, GMail and Yahoo have gone to astronomical limits on personal e-mail storage (after years of tiny limits) and harddrive capacity has gone through the roof while the cost has gone through the floor.
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I admit to being hypersensitive to the possibility of email loss. That means multiple email clients (and databases), each containing everything, and multiple backups in multiple locations. But I don't do paper.
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My solution is multiple backups, in mutiple formats, in multiple locations, of my e-mail in electronic format. I only have three e-mails printed out (these include a nasty e-mail exchange with my PhD supervisor, and a couple of receipts that related to refunds I requested). That's it.
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This is my point of view too. I believe that if you've got sufficient redundancy (good backup system), these things (loose all emails/files etc.) should absolutely not happen.
-Armando
No argument from me if that's what works best for you. :) I'm nowhere near being that confident.
I'd like believe in technology and systems. Unfortunately, I've got a little too much real-life experience with Murphy's Law to ever be a believer.
Lots of things shouldn't happen. But some still happen anyway. ;D
That's why I have redundant backups (local and remote) along with all the other techy fixin's. But I also have a hardcopy backup just in case. I'm not cynical - just experienced! ;)
Darwin: So, I'm not advocating printing EVERYTHING, just those messages that you really want to keep.
Darwin's got it! That's exactly what I was saying.
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40hz,
You might like to compare Poppy with Magic Mail Monitor (http://mmm3.sourceforge.net/), though MMM's focus leans more towards deleting spam. Seems reliable to me, on Win98 at that 8)
-rjbull
Thanks for the heads-up on MMM. I did try it some time ago. That was one of the apps that caused problems with my machine. It does do some really nice things - and the interface is a lot nicer than Poppy's. But it also does a lot more than I want.
Besides, I have one of the best spam filters in the world already - ME!
I just eyeball the headers and zap what I don't want. My "filter" is cheap, fast, and portable. It comes with unlimited free updates, and knows exactly what I want to get rid of every single time. Quite amazing really. Almost uncanny! I'll have to see if I can patent myself someday.
(The only problem is that the only person that would ever want SpamZap-40hz is me... ;D)
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I'll have to see if I can patent myself someday
.
I think you are probably too late, you probably have been patented by now!
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I'll have to see if I can patent myself someday
.
I think you are probably too late, you probably have been patented by now!
-Grorgy
(https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/esmileys/gen3/5Large/TFR1E0.gif)
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superboyac : I edited the post where I explained how I manage my emails... Your post reminded me of 3 categories/folders I almost never use. :-[
The fact is : I don't have much to delegate, not much to refer to (I use x1)... I do use the "waiting for..." one quite a bit though.
For important emails that I need to respond to but need to defer I'll often just create a special task/todo. I like to have all important stuff in ONE and only ONE place... OK, maybe 2 : Task-todo list (containing next actions, really), and calendar.
-Armando
Yes, it seems like you and I think alike about a lot of things! But I thought you were a big fan of Archivarius? How come you are using X1? I haven't used X1 in over a year, but I totally preferred Archivarius over it. Let me know, because I totally forgot that I can use an indexer, so I'm probably going to set one up soon to use with Outlook.
-superboyac
Missed that post....
I use Archivarius mostly for deeper searches/research, if I may say so. I don't find it as well thought off in terms of filtering and work flow. I like it because it's fairly fast, nice with my CPU and RAM and pretty thorough. But, In general, I prefer X1 : Outlook indexing is much much better, its UI allows more flexibility (the filtering through columns is actually very SQLNotes like), and you can organize your different searches into virtual/search folders -- and that is great. The only aspects I dislike about X1 : consumes more resources than Archivarius, is slower to appear when you invoke it, misses some data (like the notes-comments in Word documents... and the end of Huge documents don't even get indexed!!).
I find that setting filters in X1 for OUtlook or whatever stuff you need daily is quite handy. You can even create one grid per filter if you wish. And with AHK, I got all my keyboard shortcuts working nicely...
Aram and Armando - either you misunderstood 40hz or I did!
-Darwin
no no... I understood perfectly well. :) And I also understood why one would not trust HDD and computers 100% . I don't either. ;D That's why I have, multiple backups, DVD archives of incremental backups, etc. I mean, if I'm going to loose something, I'd have to be so unlucky that paper wouldn't save me anyway. I mean... paper can get burnt, soaked, lost, or whatever, too... right? It's also harder to encrypt and protect.... unless you put it in a safe.
(E.g. : A PST file might not be the most robust database in the world, but I actually don't really care if my PST becomes corrupt. I'll just start a new one, or bring back to life one of my backups. No? And if I'm dealing with something so important -- right now -- that I can't afford to loose, I'll back it up right away, on 3-4 different HDD.)
Who heard stories about 4 HDD in different places (eg : the one in my laptop, the one on my desk, the one in my bag, and the one at my parent's place) getting corrupt or broken bad all at once? I'm not saying it's not possible... but...
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I forgot to mention one very, very big advantage of X1. IT COMPLETELY ELIMINATES THE NEED TO DO SEARCHES OF ANY KIND FROM WITHIN OUTLOOK. :Thmbsup: All searches can be performed from X1.
If the X1 index is restricted to Outlook pst and or ost files only, it is extremely powerful. It eliminates the need to categorize or save email into different bins in Outlook.
The only Outlook folders I have for mail are "Inbox" and "Delete Items" (which is set to not be automatically emptied). Any message that can be deleted, unquestionably, is permanently deleted with Shift/Delete. Everything else goes in the "Deleted" folder and is permanently saved until such time in the future when I decide to permanently delete them.
One could have additional folders for categories but in its simplest form this system works perfectly well.
There are many other good tools for searching all other types of non-email files but it is worth keep them separate from the X1 index if it involves large quantities/sizes of files.
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This is my point of view too. I believe that if you've got sufficient redundancy (good backup system), these things (loose all emails/files etc.) should absolutely not happen.
-Armando
One reason for not trusting electronic means of storage is for long term stuff, as the medium may no longer be supported. I've got some 5" disks still, but nothing to read it (one of them is my Masters thesis :down:). I've got audio and video tapes too. It won't be long before they'll be unusable.
In practice, I just don't care, since if I haven't used the info in 10-15 years, I don't need it anymore
Technology evolves rapidly...
That said, I'll print Travel related information (plane tickets, etc.), other than that, never. I'd print out more if I didn't have a portable.
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Didn't x1 become free a short while ago? What happened?
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X1 Professional Client was free but it now cost $50, and worth every cent (and I am in no way affiliated with that company).
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X1 Professional Client was free but it now cost $50, and worth every cent (and I am in no way affiliated with that company).-jdd
:Thmbsup:
Agreed
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This is my point of view too. I believe that if you've got sufficient redundancy (good backup system), these things (loose all emails/files etc.) should absolutely not happen.
-Armando
One reason for not trusting electronic means of storage is for long term stuff, as the medium may no longer be supported.-PPLandry
My guess is that, in a few years... paper won't be supported anymore.(https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/esmileys/gen3/1Small/gwizd.gif)
I agree with some your points, of course. That would be a great subject for another entire huge thread... Preservation and transmission of digital info is a fairly active field of research ; in arts, for instance, it poses a significant challenges (some work of art depend on obsolete media...). (I studied that, a bit...)
To simplify the matter extremely, my take is that in general, for the typical computer user, overcoming this problem is mostly a question of keeping up with technology (as much as possible -- feasible nowadays as technology tends to be cheaper and cheaper), and transfer data as soon as another medium becomes mainstream and cheap (that's usually referred as "refreshing/copying" in the preservation/transmission of digital info research field) and as the previous one starts to become obsolete. (Some past formats are not that easy to transfer : analog recordings, video tapes (VHS...), etc.. This is in part due to the fact that "we" -- human beings -- were a bit less sensitive and aware of that transmission problem 20 years ago than what we are now, and mostly also because digital coding was not yet mainstream.)
One has to keep track of what data is where and centralize it as much as possible to facilitate backup and migration. Then he/she shouldn't loose anything significant. I never did (well... nowadays there's the metadata problems, etc. But if one is careful, it shouldn't be to much of a problem). Well... i think so...
(5" disks... yeah... Aren't there any readers still around)
Migration poses challenge, certainly. But what's worse? slightly different formatting of a (very readable) word document, or a letter you forgot you had because, well, it's in a box, buried under other boxes -- it's basically lost. Inaccessible info is lost info, right? With a computer , it takes maybe a few seconds to find it, even if the format is not perfect. And your hands are not even dirty.
There are so many different articles on that matter : here's one (http://nvl.nist.gov/pub/nistpubs/jres/107/1/j71lee.pdf)that I remembered reading a while ago. Interesting.
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Migration poses challenge, certainly. But what's worse? slightly different formatting of a (very readable) word document, or a letter you forgot you had because, well, it's in a box, buried under other boxes -- it's basically lost. Inaccessible info is lost info, right? With a computer , it takes maybe a few seconds to find it, even if the format is not perfect. And your hands are not even dirty.-Armando
For 99.9% of my e-mail and other files this is exactly how I handle things. I don't archive anything onto paper unless it is something that I can't afford to lose. The hardcopy is just another layer of protection against loss, on top of the myriad other ways in which everything is backed up - on my harddrive, in indices, on external harddrives, on a thumbdrive or two, on CD, on DVD...). The paper just insures whatever it is that I would be put out if I didn't have access to immediately and these copies go into folders and are filed. Like I said, in my case it amounts to three e-mails...
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I understand why you'd do that, Darwin. I think it's a perfectly valid/legitimate way of trying to bring more safety to the whole preservation/backup issue. Only... I don't do it.
Check it out : tomorrow I'll lose everything and I'll cry and wish some of it was printed... or maybe I'll just seize the occasion and make a fresh existential start. :) what would I become...?
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My guess is that, in a few years... paper won't be supported anymore.
-Armando
Got a specific date in mind by any chance?
They've been taking about the Paperless Office of the Future since the early 1970's. ;)
Personally, I think that's about as likely as a Paperless Bathroom. ;D
Check it out : tomorrow I'll lose everything and I'll cry and wish some of it was printed... or maybe I'll just seize the occasion and make a fresh existential start. smiley what would I become...?
Possibly incarcerated if it's tax information. Definitely something to cry about should that happen. :)
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My guess is that, in a few years... paper won't be supported anymore.
-Armando
Got a specific date in mind by any chance?
-40hz
Of course : Nostradamus talked about December 12, 2012. When we'll hit that day, you won't be able to find a single post-it.
Personally, I think that's about as likely as a Paperless Bathroom. ;D
-40hz
In many countries and regions the paperless bathroom is very real, my friend. :Thmbsup:
Possibly incarcerated if it's tax information. Definitely something to cry about should that happen. :)
-40hz
Really...? don't think that Canadians are that crazy... yet. We're getting there though, slowly but surely. :'(
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Personally, I think that's about as likely as a Paperless Bathroom. ;D
-40hz
In many countries and regions the paperless bathroom is very real, my friend. :Thmbsup:
-Armando
Perhaps. But I very much doubt that was by design. ;D
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They've been taking about the Paperless Office of the Future since the early 1970's. ;)
Personally, I think that's about as likely as a Paperless Bathroom. ;D
-40hz
That joke takes me back, if not to the early 1970's, at least to 1981, when I heard a DEC engineer use it in a speech at a CP/M-86 conference. I've been using it ever since.
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They've been taking about the Paperless Office of the Future since the early 1970's. ;)
Personally, I think that's about as likely as a Paperless Bathroom. ;D
-40hz
That joke takes me back, if not to the early 1970's, at least to 1981, when I heard a DEC engineer use it in a speech at a CP/M-86 conference. I've been using it ever since.
-xtabber
Does anybody know who first came up with that phrase? I've used it many times and I'd love to be able to give credit where credit's due. 8)
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I use The Bat! because I have to manage multiple account (currently about thirty accounts).
I have a number of sub-folder beneath the in-boxes that receive the message based on rules and filters. The original poster mentioned that he uses The bat! at home so he is aware of the extremely powerful filtering.
The most important part of my e-mail system is that The Bat! allows one to create a global rules and "share them" with whichever accounts one likes.
I have a global rule that BCCs every message that I send to my Gmail account.
Added to a second global rule that "redirects" a copy of every in-coming message to my Gmail account and I find that I can search and find e-mails considerably quicker through Gmail than I can using the Bat!'s own search feature.
Furthermore, Gmail also offers very useful filters and sorting facilities.
If you are only using one POP e-mail account, you can set up Gmail to send out e-mail and make it appear to have come from your POP account. You can further recieve you POP e-mail via G-mail so everything is backed up on Gmail with the added advantage of Gmail's e-mail servers will not likely be blacklisted for spam.
One final point about The Bat!. I use it in combination with ABC Amber The Bat Converter which lets me archive old e-mails in PDF, CHM, HTML and a number of other formats. Excellent for storage and retrieval.
The Bat! and ABC Amber are two of only three programs that I have gladly paid for. I believe they are worth a total of $30. Otherwise, I strongly advocate donating to and using open source software wherever possible.
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I use Popfile and Outclass with Outlook 2007. Popfile is a bayesian filter, but unlike most will classify more than just spam. You can create any number of classifications and being bayesian it learns what incoming email should be classified as. Outclass is just a hook into Outlook for popfile that allows easy reclassification etc.
In terms of the actual sorting of me email, I have a pretty simple structure. Work, personal, mailing list, and spam.
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popfile is awesome - the only bayesian filter I ever used that could not only learn about spam, but i taught it to recognise
- newsletters & automated letters
- professional email
- personal email
Once trained it could tell the difference between a colleague sending me an email about work or about going clubbing thursday night!
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The Bat! and ABC Amber are two of only three programs that I have gladly paid for. I believe they are worth a total of $30. Otherwise, I strongly advocate donating to and using open source software wherever possible.-Antonimo
<gripe>
As a long time user and an active member on both TBUDL/TBBETA before giving up, I have to say I liked The Bat! a lot, too. I would still be using it if RITLabs delivered on its promise to support Chinese/Japanese/Korean mail properly. It never did. Still doesn't with the latest v4. (Tried v.4.0.18 a while back.)
</gripe>