Standing in the Field @ Valley Forge

Standing in the Field

Notes from SJS Application Server Field Engineering

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Friday February 11, 2005
Email Etiquette

Just a quick link, as I'm working on a couple of big deadlines that have kept me away from the blog.

GTD is fundamentally about lists and trusting those lists. Jason Clarke makes some insightful points about how people use email inboxes as lists. He says that there are "filers" who use folders to archive messages and "pilers" who just stack stuff in their inbox. And that pilers tend to be lose todo items as email drops off of the first screen of the inbox.

How true. Even though I'm working a ninety hour week this week I don't feel like I can let my inbox grow out of control. If I don't have my inbox completely empty once a day I feel like I'm losing control. Every email isn't "done", but I've at least done a GTD workflow on every item. In other words, I've either deleted, filed, done, delegated or deferred each item before 24 hours has passed.

Jason also has some ideas about how to better use email folders. I think I'll follow his advice and simplify my IMAP folders to make searching my mail archives easier.

(2005-02-11 07:32:34.0) Permalink Comments [2]


Comments:

Thank you for the kind comments. I just thought I should let you know that if you're using IMAP, your best bet for a Desktop Search tool is Lookout. I recently had a conversation with Marc Orchant about his desktop search tool preference, and he is also an IMAP user. He reports that Lookout is the most effective and compatible search tool for working with IMAP folders. Cheers!

Posted by Jason on February 11, 2005 at 12:03 PM PST #

That is, of course, if you use Windows and Outlook. I should have paid attention to your domain before posting my previous tip!

Posted by Jason on February 11, 2005 at 12:05 PM PST #

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