The battle for inbox control: Part One

Submitted by Cat on Wed, 2008-04-30 02:43

Okay. I admit that I need help. I have thousands of emails in multiple email accounts. I've got so many archives and filters that I'm really not sure what is going where and/or if I'm receiving all of my emails. I've been searching and searching for a good system that will allow me to use my gmail accounts with Apple's Mail.app. Unfortunately, Gmail labels and Apple folders don't sync particularly well and some emails mysteriously reappear after being deleted. Gmail has some great advantages that I'd like to make use of--starring conversations, tagging with labels, filtering, the GTDInbox Firefox add on. However, I like to have access to my email from my computer without having to rely on an internet connection to look through already received emails. Mail.app works for me and I like the interface. Some of the Leopard changes are proving useful, but again, unfortunately I am unable to take full advantage of Gmail's capabilities when using Mail.

Additionally, I'm a fan of David Allen's GTD. Yes, I am one of the techno-geeks who have become more than slightly obsessed with David Allen's workflow ideas and strategies. While I try to apply his strategies to my physical spaces, I'd also like to make more effective use of my electronic spaces. I'm really not sure which one is more difficult. In fact, organizing my digital life may be more difficult because of the wide range of choices available. I have tried so many different types of software and web apps in an attempt to find one that would work more or less comprehensively. Witness my (lack of) success. Still, by making small inroads I am coming closer to my overall organizational and productivity goals. Given the massive amounts of time and energy that I have spent trying to make some order out of my chaotic life, it seems only appropriate that I should make that time worthwhile by sharing it here. (Plus, this might help me figure out how to organize my organizing strategies. And sadly, that was not a joke.)

Back to the topic of email, Allen (and others) recommend processing emails in batches at specific times during the day and acting on each email as you process it. This is the "Inbox zero" approach. The idea is that your inbox should be a space of transit rather than storage. David Allen uses context tags (he uses folders but labels will work just as well) to sort his email. The tags will vary depending upon the type of email you receive and what function(s) email serves for you. In my case, I try to use the following: [The @ in front of each folder name is to ensure that these folders remain at the top of the list. My Mail app has a lot of folders and without the @ symbol I'd never be able to find these important folders.

  • @Act on this = items that require an action that needs to be completed in the next day or two
  • @Waiting On = emails that I've responded to but have not yet received a reply
  • @To Read = reference materials and other non-urgent resources. In other words, things I'd like to read saved until I have time for them.
  • @Future = emails that should be acted on in the future (1 week or longer). This only works if you remember to review this folder weekly. Otherwise, you might miss important tasks because you've filed them away.
  • @@NOW = this is for urgent items that should be taken care of within the next few hours or at most 24 hours.
  • @Save = I archive processed and completed emails here.

So, I've been trying to implement this for the past year or so with moderate, sporadic success. Unfortunately my own limitations in implementing these strategies have reduced their efficiency, which is why I am doing what I am right now--I need to make these strategies work for me, in a way that is natural and comfortable for me. One of the most anxiety-producing parts of handling my email is the sheer number of emails already in the inbox. You want to start processing incoming mail immediately but what about the backlog? When do you have time to go through all of those old emails, deleting, archiving and acting as appropriate? In an attempt to ease my mind and start with a "clean slate," I used a combination of the email bankruptcy idea Lawrence Lessig uses and Merlin Mann's Email DMZ. (Gina Trapani proposes similar strategies in a post on Unclutterer.) Lessig deleted all of his emails after copying everyone's email addresses. He then sent out a mass email telling everyone that he was declaring email bankruptcy (and explaining what that meant) and asked for a resend of anything important. Because I don't hate everyone who sends me emails and because I think it's a bit presumptuous and self-important to delete emails that are sent to you and then request that people resend any that they might want a response to, I did not delete all of my emails./ Instead I used Merlin Mann's DMZ idea but called my folder "email bankruptcy." (It's been a while but I guess I decided to do that because it sounded cool? Not sure.) I know that "email bankruptcy" sounds crazy and since I've done it twice now, I can attest to, at the very least, my own craziness. Seriously, I emptied my inbox by shifting all of my emails into a folder entitled: email bankruptcy. (I called the second one--"slush fund") The idea was to process incoming mail several times daily and then gradually go through all of the bankruptcy emails. Unfortunately, this only works if you open the bankruptcy folder and actually look at the emails in there. For me out of sight is out of mind and my relationship to my email inbox is no different from that. And as evidence of my lack of success, my current inbox unread email count is 457. For all of the mail, it's 1117.

Needless to say, I need a new strategy. First, I'm going to take a look at all of the emails that were marked by Mail as junk. Some of these were spam, while others were actually from newsletters or other sites that I had subscribed to. I went through and unsubscribed to most. There are a couple that I'm still going to get but only a select few. My Slate.com, emails including "Dear Prudence," Slashdot digest, ZDNet and MoveOn are a few that I'm keeping so far. After going through I realized that I must be signed up for 40-50 mailing lists...at least! That's an inexcusable waste of my time. Listservs are one thing but almost all of the other newsletters that I received were available via RSS and/or were not worth my time to start with.

I'm considering trying another of Merlin's ideas and creating four folders based on email recency so that I can break up the processing into chunks. Plus, he uses some humorous folder names and that's always a good time.

Additional resources:

And some email practices that must be stopped!:

  • The blank subject line. This is my biggest email pet peeve. Seriously, I get hundreds of emails daily. I need to be able to scan subject headers to determine which emails need my attention and which ones can wait. I save the blank ones until last. If you want an answer anytime this century, use an effing subject header!
  • The vague subject header. "Info" or "update" are not effective subject headers. What info? What are you updating me on? Grrr.
  • Misspelling my name. Okay, this isn't strictly an email thing but it bears mentioning. Take a minute to spell my name correctly, especially when you have it right in front of you.
  • Forwards. Seriously folks, I'm not interested in whatever urban myth is making the email rounds or how sweet kittens are. I use email for relevant and important information. Don't send me cutesy stories and annoying chain letters promising that I will have horrible luck if I don't annoy everyone in my address book by forwarding it to them.
  • Sending an email to the entire listserv rather than the individual to whom you should be replying. Read your "To" line. If it has the listserv name in it, you're sending it to everyone. It's not rocket science.
  • Sending emails to a listserv telling other people to quit sending emails to the listserv. Seriously. Do you not realize how absurd that is? Thanks for filling my inbox with your useless emails. (I know I sound a bit bitter here, but every semester someone sends an email to our graduate student listserv that ultimately offends one ore more subscribers resulting in a protracted email debate liberally peppered with "Stop replying to the list" emails. I'd love to publish some of the inanity here, but I feel like I would be violating the privacy of those who participate in what is a closed listserv.)
  • Long cc lists. I don't mind short, personal emails that cc me or others. However, I'd rather not share my email address with all 115 people that you are sending this email to. Wait. If there's an email that somehow warrants being sent to 115 people, just leave me off the list since it's probably an inane forward.