43 Folders

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Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.

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

Anyone else having problems replying to emails?

I'm so bad replying to emails. They just keep piling. I read them the moment they come, but something keeps me from replying or acting on them. How do you deal with emails? Do having specific blocks of time devoted to email writing works for you? How you balance replying to emails with the other parts of your work? Is anyone using Groupwise for your emails? Any tips for using it? The new version is able to attach labels to the emails and changes the color of the header accordingly. Now I have a very colorful inbox but as full as before.

Eleanor's picture

I'm absolutely terrible about email...

I'm absolutely terrible about email correspondence. I find the only way I can keep on top of things is to keep my inbox absolutely clear of everything I've already read -- I filter read emails into one of half-a-dozen folders depending on what I have to do with it ("reply", "wait for someone else", "take action", etc) and then schedule a concrete block of time each day to deal with all the stuff in the 'Reply' folder.

The system's basically what's described here, an article by someone vaguely familiar. :)

 
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