43 Folders

Back to Work

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

Join us via RSS, iTunes, or at 5by5.tv.

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

GTD-style email in Thunderbird

entropic principal: Using Thunderbird to Get Things Done

Clever way to use Thunderbird’s excellent (semantic) flags to implement a GTD-inspired email triage system:

So I also have a saved search I call “Next Actions” to keep up with the stuff I need to pay attention to. The criteria for this one is: “Match any of the following: Label is Action Required; Label is None; Label is Wait”. See what that does? Anything I need to do something with, anything I’m waiting for somebody else to do, and anything that I haven’t made the first decision on, all shows up in one place. As soon as I mark something as Archive, Delete, or Defer, it disappears from this view on my next refresh. So my to-do list is always up-to-date, always right there. As soon as a task is complete, I can mark the message as Archive and forget about it.

I’d love for Mail.app to allow multiple semantic flags like this. You can get pretty close with Mail Tags or categories in Entourage, but it would be great to have this kind of functionality native to the app and easily exposable via Spotlight.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

mc's picture

Merlin, I'd be curious to...

Merlin, I'd be curious to hear what you say. I am happily using Mail Tags and Act-On to parse my Inbox when needed, sending all emails that require more than 30 seconds to "respond later" or "turn into task," then I assign due dates by which I must reply, and I have created smart folders (as the Mail Tags folks have suggested, with some modifications), to keep track of what needs to be done by when. It's not GTD, it just helps create a smaller cloud of information that I can deal with dynamically at a given point. (I try to avoid wanking, meta work, etc., but then again, I still make heavy use of my Apple Newton.)

What I wish and can't seem to get is a keystroke to get me into mailboxes. Yes, I know cmd-4 is sent, cmd-3 drafts, etc. I want additional assignable keys for other mailboxes, like my "respond to later" or "turn into task" boxes and a few others. Is there any help with that?

 
EXPLORE 43Folders THE GOOD STUFF

Popular
Today

Popular
Classics

An Oblique Strategy:
Honor thy error as a hidden intention


STAY IN THE LOOP:

Subscribe with Google Reader

Subscribe on Netvibes

Add to Technorati Favorites

Subscribe on Pageflakes

Add RSS feed

The Podcast Feed

Cranking

Merlin used to crank. He’s not cranking any more.

This is an essay about family, priorities, and Shakey’s Pizza, and it’s probably the best thing he’s written. »

Scared Shitless

Merlin’s scared. You’re scared. Everybody is scared.

This is the video of Merlin’s keynote at Webstock 2011. The one where he cried. You should watch it. »