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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Glenn Wolsey: 6 email tips

Glenn Wolsey—6 Ways To Organize - Your Mail Application

Glenn Wolsey has a great little post on how he's set up and is using Mail.app. He's got some very smart stuff here, including an intriguing approach to minimalist mailbox management:

Create 3 folders and name them Follow-Up, Interesting & To Do. Then, as you check your emails file them straight into the applicable folder.

Later, when you have time you can go straight to these folders folder and work through them. It will be much quicker to see what needs attending to and you are more likely to might be motivated to spare a few minutes clearing your to-do folder.

The "Interesting" folder is a new one to me, and, although I personally favor a more verb-y approach to my email buckets, that would be a cool way to bubble up stuff you don't want to miss after a big round of processing.

As we covered in Inbox Zero, it's all about liberating the actions out of your mail. Like any of this stuff, if the system makes sense to you and gives you transparent affordances for instantly knowing "where it goes" and "what you need to do about it," then you're on to something.

Nice work, Glenn!

A Bob’s Life » Blog Archive » Getting Thin's picture

[...] Back to the topic...

[...] Back to the topic at hand.  Patrick Rhone has a great post on how he is using Backpack.  While I’m sure my usage will be different, it’s been fun to read about his usage simply to give me ideas.  There are a ton of other folks posting thoughts on using Backpack, so I’ll be doing some reading, and then I’ll be getting to work.  Hopefully I’ll be able to combine this with a neater desk and a more controlled Inbox to get a significantly better workflow in my life! [...]

 
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