Email organization - Search or Sort?
Monday Feb 27, 2006
I've been using Gmail for my personal email for about 8 months now and am still getting used to their whole idea of search rather than sort. I'm fairly organized - when I can keep up with it, my work email gets filed into the appropriate folder.
Gmail's philosophy is a little different:
1. "Search, don't sort" - This means don't file things in a folder and then go searching your folders for that old email. Instead, you should just use their outstanding search functionality. I like this aspect.
2. "Don't throw anything away" - Using Gmail, you archive emails instead of deleting them. Now, this part I just don't get. While there is a spam folder that allows you to delete spam "forever," there is also "trash" on the left side of the browser. There is never anything in the trash and I don't know how I'd even put anything in there. I'm sure there is an answer for this discrepancy in their FAQs but who has the time to read those. I'm not a moron. I know how to send mail. ;-)
3. "Keep it all in context" - With this functionality, all email is organized by threads in your inbox. I don't normally have my work inbox organized this way (instead I will sort by subject) but I do somewhat like it with Gmail. The catch is it can get confusing. For example, if I have one email discussion going, when I forward it to someone else and they respond, all the threads still appear in the same view. At this point, it takes an extra couple seconds to check who's email response you are actually reading.
Even though I'm still getting used to gmail, I do like it. I think I just need to use it more. Sounds like it's time for me spend a couple minutes looking at the FAQ.
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