4 ms·

I wouldn't say I have a problem with email as it is today, but I am the exact opposite of you; I never archive or organize any of my email (besides rules for la

by Rezo 12y ago

I wouldn't say I have a problem with email as it is today, but I am the exact opposite of you; I never archive or organize any of my email (besides rules for labeling email lists and groups so they directly bypass my inbox). I appear to have 11,600+ emails in my Gmail inbox. If I need something, I just search for it. As the Gmail search is really, really, good, I can pretty much instantly bring up any thread. I therefore don't see any value in spending even a second of time in trying to organize a piece of email. I also really like the "Social" and "Promotions" tabs Gmail added, it's like a smart filter for "unimportant stuff" that I don't even need to bother looking at but can search for if needed. I look forward to Inbox automating and highlighting actionable items even more (check in for flight etc, should just be a button press without even opening the email). I would rather apply a label, or mark a message as unread (this is what I typically do), if it is something I need to return to later. Most emails can either be directly acted upon, or don't require a followup at a later time, so optimizing the common case down to "do nothing" makes sense for me.

smacktoward 12y ago
I do the same thing, only in Thunderbird over IMAP with around 27,000 messages. TB search is fast and accurate, and I keep track of emails that need immediate action by starring them and then un-starring them after the action is taken. Pretty straightforward.
ricket 12y ago
I think you have to really consciously process your email though, in order for your system to work. I have gotten really bad at email lately and it's because of this: I leave my emails in my inbox like you. Except I archive something that I'm really, truly done with (never wanna see it again, not even for reference; archive = trash). But now my inbox is a mix of things I haven't yet read, I've read but haven't acted on, things I've read and keep in my inbox for reference, and things that I'm done with but I'm ignoring them so hard that they never actually get archived like they should. "Mark as unread" is used at a whim, usually when I read something on my phone and think "I should read this on my computer" so I flag it unread to make sure it stands out. Nothing is starred, except I have colored stars and mark a bill with a green star before I archive it (this is a remnant of a system I tried in the past but didn't fully stick). As a result, I end up missing or not doing things, and re-reading emails I've already done, and my inbox is just a big chronologically-ordered mess. This is my personal email anyway. My work email I'm a little more careful with, but it also piles up over time and rarely something will slip through the cracks. Outlook's flag/reminder system is decent at least, so it's manageable, but it still at times feels disorganized and just not quite how I want it to be.
- Rezo 12y ago
  I think you're still trying to do too many things at once and mixing concepts. Simplify: If an email requires a followup, label it with "todo". Don't archive email (except as an alternative to delete), don't try mark read things as unread, etc. Then, in order to check your current list of actions, have a view of only the emails labeled with "todo". I try to review this list twice a day or so. As you work off the list, remove the label from email when done! This workflow is almost identical to the Outlook flag system which I also like. In this way, the goal is only to get your todo list to zero, which is a very small subset of all items that are arriving in your inbox. I think the key is to use one system consistently, and to have a concise view of your current open items with minimal manual effort.
  - 01Michael10 12y ago
    I agree with the don't archive email... Who cares if all my mail is in my inbox? That's what search and labels are for, but... Why bother with a "todo" label? Emails I need to act on are simply "starred".
exelius 12y ago
Yeah, I have a 10 year old GMail account with hundreds of thousands of messages. I'm simply not organized enough to stay on top of sorting things into folders on the off chance I might need to search for it one day. Search is the easiest way to find anything anyway; but people developed sorting techniques because e-mail search is awful on local clients.
- stephenr 12y ago
  email search WAS awful on local clients, years ago.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - exelius 12y ago
    It still is if your mailbox is over 10GB.
serverholic 12y ago
Yeah I don't get the point of inbox zero either. I don't see any functional improvement so really it's just wasting time so you can pat yourself on the back.
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  Actually, I see inbox zero (or near zero - I try to keep it under 10) as a time saver. It means I can instantly look at my inbox and see what items I need to work on. If you just keep everything in your inbox, it means you need to click on a button to sort by starred emails. Also you need to star any emails you need to work on. Most of my emails take a while to respond to - I like to think about them for a while before responding. With your method I wouldn't be able to do that - I have to either respond to all my emails after reading them, or else star all my emails as 'needing work' until I have time to respond. Keeping only a few items in my inbox that I need to work on is the most efficient way of working, at least for me.
astrocat 12y ago
I do exactly this as well. Some things need the user to spend time organizing them because search can't operate on it well (i.e. photos), but email is not one of those things. 99.99% of the time email search gets me what I'm looking for in a mater of seconds. Spending time organizing emails is going to be a complete waste of time for the vast majority of people. This is also the reason I've never been able to use any 3rd party email clients and rely solely on gmail in the browser. Search is so much faster/better when done directly in gmail. I'm curious to try Inbox and see if it provides a useful added layer of aggregation of messages above and beyond the current "conversations."
- eru 12y ago
  > "because search can't operate on it well (i.e. photos), " People are working on that.
richardw 12y ago
I dumped the Social and Promotions tabs because they're always there to bother me. I have a "subscriptions" tag that any vaguely noisy mailing lists go into and I rarely bother to look at it, but it's there if I want to. Rarely = once a month, maybe.

by Rezo 12y ago

smacktoward 12y ago

I do the same thing, only in Thunderbird over IMAP with around 27,000 messages. TB search is fast and accurate, and I keep track of emails that need immediate action by starring them and then un-starring them after the action is taken. Pretty straightforward.

ricket 12y ago

I think you have to really consciously process your email though, in order for your system to work. I have gotten really bad at email lately and it's because of this: I leave my emails in my inbox like you. Except I archive something that I'm really, truly done with (never wanna see it again, not even for reference; archive = trash). But now my inbox is a mix of things I haven't yet read, I've read but haven't acted on, things I've read and keep in my inbox for reference, and things that I'm done with but I'm ignoring them so hard that they never actually get archived like they should. "Mark as unread" is used at a whim, usually when I read something on my phone and think "I should read this on my computer" so I flag it unread to make sure it stands out. Nothing is starred, except I have colored stars and mark a bill with a green star before I archive it (this is a remnant of a system I tried in the past but didn't fully stick). As a result, I end up missing or not doing things, and re-reading emails I've already done, and my inbox is just a big chronologically-ordered mess. This is my personal email anyway. My work email I'm a little more careful with, but it also piles up over time and rarely something will slip through the cracks. Outlook's flag/reminder system is decent at least, so it's manageable, but it still at times feels disorganized and just not quite how I want it to be.

Rezo 12y ago
I think you're still trying to do too many things at once and mixing concepts. Simplify: If an email requires a followup, label it with "todo". Don't archive email (except as an alternative to delete), don't try mark read things as unread, etc. Then, in order to check your current list of actions, have a view of only the emails labeled with "todo". I try to review this list twice a day or so. As you work off the list, remove the label from email when done! This workflow is almost identical to the Outlook flag system which I also like. In this way, the goal is only to get your todo list to zero, which is a very small subset of all items that are arriving in your inbox. I think the key is to use one system consistently, and to have a concise view of your current open items with minimal manual effort.
- 01Michael10 12y ago
  I agree with the don't archive email... Who cares if all my mail is in my inbox? That's what search and labels are for, but... Why bother with a "todo" label? Emails I need to act on are simply "starred".

exelius 12y ago

Yeah, I have a 10 year old GMail account with hundreds of thousands of messages. I'm simply not organized enough to stay on top of sorting things into folders on the off chance I might need to search for it one day. Search is the easiest way to find anything anyway; but people developed sorting techniques because e-mail search is awful on local clients.

stephenr 12y ago
email search WAS awful on local clients, years ago.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- exelius 12y ago
  It still is if your mailbox is over 10GB.

serverholic 12y ago

Yeah I don't get the point of inbox zero either. I don't see any functional improvement so really it's just wasting time so you can pat yourself on the back.

cpncrunch 12y ago
Actually, I see inbox zero (or near zero - I try to keep it under 10) as a time saver. It means I can instantly look at my inbox and see what items I need to work on. If you just keep everything in your inbox, it means you need to click on a button to sort by starred emails. Also you need to star any emails you need to work on. Most of my emails take a while to respond to - I like to think about them for a while before responding. With your method I wouldn't be able to do that - I have to either respond to all my emails after reading them, or else star all my emails as 'needing work' until I have time to respond. Keeping only a few items in my inbox that I need to work on is the most efficient way of working, at least for me.

astrocat 12y ago

I do exactly this as well. Some things need the user to spend time organizing them because search can't operate on it well (i.e. photos), but email is not one of those things. 99.99% of the time email search gets me what I'm looking for in a mater of seconds. Spending time organizing emails is going to be a complete waste of time for the vast majority of people. This is also the reason I've never been able to use any 3rd party email clients and rely solely on gmail in the browser. Search is so much faster/better when done directly in gmail. I'm curious to try Inbox and see if it provides a useful added layer of aggregation of messages above and beyond the current "conversations."

eru 12y ago
> "because search can't operate on it well (i.e. photos), " People are working on that.

richardw 12y ago

I dumped the Social and Promotions tabs because they're always there to bother me. I have a "subscriptions" tag that any vaguely noisy mailing lists go into and I rarely bother to look at it, but it's there if I want to. Rarely = once a month, maybe.