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

[Cinnamon Melchor]

| I recently read the email management report by Mark Hurst 
| < http://www.goodexperience.com/reports/e-mail/ > & have been 
| pondering it.

Where the heck do you get the time to read? I can't even keep up with
B&A's *headlines*, much less read the articles!


| *How do 
| you manage your inbox? Is it a to-do-list/tickler file, etc 
| etc or exclusively a repository (or something else?). 

It's all of the above. If it scrolls, I don't see it again (those
friends from 1999...). I started flagging for followup those emails that
I just didn't want to throw away because they had some sort of handy
tidbit in them - but then everything started getting flags. 

Then I started marking as unread because that's more irritating (and
thus remindful) to me than the flags. That still works to some extent.

Then I started editing the messages - changing the sender's subject
lines to something meaningful to me. That's helped enormously on lists
like DC WebWomen. 

It also helps because I have filters set up for my list subscriptions:
everything with DCWW in the subject line goes in one folder. When I edit
the subject line, I take the DCWW out, so when I sort that folder by
subject line, the stuff without DCWW gets segregated and therefore
highlighted after a fashion. It also helps enormously that the DCWW list
has a well-followed policy for writing subject lines <
http://www.dcwebwomen.org/mlist/listguide.html#rules >.

I'll also sort by sender and just delete certain senders. And no, that's
not just something that happens with the SIG-IA list.



| *Is your system for list/action/document tracking the same online 
| as offline? If not, how do the systems differ? 

I don't have much offline tracking anymore (pausing to think), though
there is some. It's pretty much time- and priority-based. Ooh, I'm
feeling an org model coming! :)

long-term, critical (mortgage got paid off!) -> 
long-term, irrelevant if it gets lost (book reviews)

short-term, critical (taxes, those last few paper bills) -> 
short-term, irrelevant (grocery list, often. We eat out a lot. :)

Long-term, critical gets some sort of Official Storage Solution -
manilla folder, space in the home file cabinet, a box with a label.
Long-term, irrelevant gets piled and then trashed in occasional
house-cleaning frenzies. Book reviews are in an envelope on the fridge.

Short-term stuff can be a post-it note on the mirror in the dining room
(deposit Grandma's check! party at John's Saturday) or a container that
only gets used for that thing (taxes and needed receipts always get put
in this one bin - and once taxes are sent in, they move to long-term,
critical status and get space in the filing cabinet). Short-term stuff
is much more contextually placed: grocery list on the fridge; reminder
to get oil changed stuck to dashboard; something that involves a car
errand gets put next to car keys.

The way I deal with the email inbox follows the same setup:
long-term, critical (put in folder, subject line edited) -> 
long-term, irrelevant if it gets lost (stays in whatever folder it lands
in)

short-term, critical (flag, mark as unread) -> 
short-term, irrelevant (auto-delete filters, touch
once/read-(reply)-delete)

| *When it comes 
| to your online info mngmt system, what element or elements 
| would you identify as successful/the thing that makes it work?

Being able to edit to add context/meaning. If I could do my own metadata
for email, I probably would. 

Cheers,
Cinnamon