[Sigia-l] email management (not completely on topic)

[Samantha Bailey]

Hi,

I recently read the email management report by Mark Hurst
(http://www.goodexperience.com/reports/e-mail/)& have been pondering it.
According to
Mark I'm one of those pesky inbox abusers because I use my inbox as a to-do
list and "tickler file." Now, I know from having read just about every book
on organization and time management ever written that these are no-nos (if
only because of how many times you wind up "touching" each message) but when
it comes to email I've really been stumped on how to get around it.

I've tried, on a number of occasions, both with work & home inboxes to do
alternate things (e.g., create a "to do" folder or an excel based task list)
but I find that once a document is out of my inbox I consider it completed,
or at least mothballed, such that it's very hard to ever bring it back to my
attention (this is why I have unanswered messages from friends of mine from
1999--no joke).

Furthermore, I have found that when my filing system in email gets beyond 2
tiers I become so inexact in filing things that finding them again is
difficult if not impossible. I hate the cluttered effect of having a hyper
broad and shallow email filing system but that's the only system that has
worked for me (insofar as it works).

It has been really frustrating to me that I'm someone who creates
information systems for a living and yet seem to only have a tenuous grasp
on managing my own digital information system.

A few questions...

*Is personal information management an information architecture issue; is it
worth thinking about systematically or does it fall in the realm of the
idiosyncratic?
*How do you manage your inbox? Is it a to-do-list/tickler file, etc etc or
exclusively a repository (or something else?).
*Is your system for list/action/document tracking the same online as
offline? If not, how do the systems differ?
*When it comes to your online info mngmt system, what element or elements
would you identify as successful/the thing that makes it work?

If I get any amazing brainwaves as a result, I'll share them...

thanks

sb



Samantha Bailey
samantha at baileysorts.com | http://baileysorts.com