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Every Single Email Client (That I Know Of) Is Completely Broken and Here’s Why

14 points by scottporad 15y ago

corin_ 15y ago
But.. they're email clients. You know what your Inbox is? It’s inbound messages. Just like voice mail or snail mail or smoke signals. And if I turn on an answering machine, or open a letterbox, I expect to see the inbound messages, not my todo list or calendar.
muppetman 15y ago
I don't think the author understands what email is. As someone has commented on the blog itself, it's not like your Telephone voicemail system is a task list!
molecule 15y ago
spoiler: because they're not GTD apps.
nodata 15y ago
I'd argue that his workflow is broken. If he is sitting all day staring at his inbox rather than shock switching windows between his task tracker or work or whatever, and his e-mail interface, then that doesn't make every email client broken.
nmcfarl 15y ago
So it looks like a lot of people here do not have broken workflows, and mail works for them. However, I like the author, have significant problems with my inbox. My inbox is as someone much smarter than me said "A todo list others write for you". The problem is that they often have valid points, and I do indeed need to do the tasks outlined in the mail. I would pay serious money for a tool that helped me move tasks out of mail into my todo list in a sane fashion. As it is the act of managing todo's inbound from my mail is a major % of my work day. And that seems crazy.
- veidr 15y ago
  I believe there are various tools that will do exactly that for you. For instance, I manage my tasks using OmniFocus, and in Apple's Mail program, pressing a keyboard shortcut instantly creates a task in OmniFocus, with the content of the email added as an attachment to the todo, and a link back to the original message (just in case I want to refer to the whole thread or something). Another keyboard shortcut moves the message to my "Old Mail" folder on my IMAP server. (I used to organize old mail by client or project or whatever, but modern searching makes that unnecessary.) I use two separate actions because the normal thing I do with a message is glance at it and put it in Old Mail. If I need to make a task out of it, it's one extra keystroke. So my Inbox only has new messages in it that I haven't seen yet, and my task list has all my tasks, including the ones originating from email, without much friction.
  - WettowelReactor 15y ago
    I use a similar approach. I have three folders I sort all mail into (Archive, ToDo, Followup). With one keystroke any new messages get sent to the proper folder and my task list simply consists of my ToDo email folder.
sigil 15y ago
There's an app for that...in fact, there's a YC S11 startup for that. http://www.taskforceapp.com/ http://www.taskforceapp.com/ Of course, the author's idea that email is isomorphic to a todo list is pretty ludicrous.

14 points by scottporad 15y ago

But.. they're email clients. You know what your Inbox is? It’s inbound messages. Just like voice mail or snail mail or smoke signals. And if I turn on an answering machine, or open a letterbox, I expect to see the inbound messages, not my todo list or calendar.

muppetman 15y ago

I don't think the author understands what email is. As someone has commented on the blog itself, it's not like your Telephone voicemail system is a task list!

molecule 15y ago

spoiler: because they're not GTD apps.

nodata 15y ago

I'd argue that his workflow is broken. If he is sitting all day staring at his inbox rather than shock switching windows between his task tracker or work or whatever, and his e-mail interface, then that doesn't make every email client broken.

nmcfarl 15y ago

So it looks like a lot of people here do not have broken workflows, and mail works for them. However, I like the author, have significant problems with my inbox. My inbox is as someone much smarter than me said "A todo list others write for you". The problem is that they often have valid points, and I do indeed need to do the tasks outlined in the mail. I would pay serious money for a tool that helped me move tasks out of mail into my todo list in a sane fashion. As it is the act of managing todo's inbound from my mail is a major % of my work day. And that seems crazy.

veidr 15y ago
I believe there are various tools that will do exactly that for you. For instance, I manage my tasks using OmniFocus, and in Apple's Mail program, pressing a keyboard shortcut instantly creates a task in OmniFocus, with the content of the email added as an attachment to the todo, and a link back to the original message (just in case I want to refer to the whole thread or something). Another keyboard shortcut moves the message to my "Old Mail" folder on my IMAP server. (I used to organize old mail by client or project or whatever, but modern searching makes that unnecessary.) I use two separate actions because the normal thing I do with a message is glance at it and put it in Old Mail. If I need to make a task out of it, it's one extra keystroke. So my Inbox only has new messages in it that I haven't seen yet, and my task list has all my tasks, including the ones originating from email, without much friction.
- WettowelReactor 15y ago
  I use a similar approach. I have three folders I sort all mail into (Archive, ToDo, Followup). With one keystroke any new messages get sent to the proper folder and my task list simply consists of my ToDo email folder.

sigil 15y ago

There's an app for that...in fact, there's a YC S11 startup for that. http://www.taskforceapp.com/ http://www.taskforceapp.com/ Of course, the author's idea that email is isomorphic to a todo list is pretty ludicrous.