http://tidbits.com/ Feeling overwhelmed with email? That’s a genuine and common problem, but Joe Kissell takes umbrage with those who complain about email as a medium or look to a new email app to be a magic bullet. en-us Copyright 2013 TidBITS Publishing Inc. Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 EDT Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 EDT editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Editors) editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Editors) http://tidbits.com/images/tb_logo_152x55.png http://tidbits.com/ 55 152 TidBITS badge http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_18009 Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:03:58 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_18009
Like I did during 12+ years using Eudora, I use filters and account/sender-specific mailboxes (folders) so I immediately know where a particular message is from and if it requires immediate attention. As a result my in-boxes are usually empty...

GMail? I only use it minimally for things such as CraigsList communications. My beef with Google: automatically scanning the text of my e-mail so I can receive targeted ads. It's creepy, plain and simple... I don't care if it's a computer doing the scanning. We have to trust that Google isn't doing something else with that scanned text... and I don't trust Google one bit.

Giving up my privacy for a "free" e-mail service is too much for me to pay.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17837 Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:29:10 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17837 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17842 Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:28:21 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17842 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17839 Mon, 04 Mar 2013 06:48:59 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17839
2) Looks like I have 5 messages in my mailbox with the word "kitten" and a photo attachment of a kitten that a family member just acquired or that a friend is trying to get someone to adopt. (Gmail search on "kitten has:attachment")]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17838 Sun, 03 Mar 2013 20:50:01 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17838 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17828 Thu, 28 Feb 2013 05:57:52 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17828 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17823 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:24:39 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17823 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17810 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:14:44 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17810 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17808 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:48:41 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17808 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17799 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 06:13:55 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17799
Luckily, this isn't a real problem for me because Mail is only a backup of Gmail for me (and my Eudora archive from years past); having everything in Gmail and using Gmail's Web and mobile clients eliminates all the "physical" issues related to email. And in situations where offline access is necessary, it's not hard to point an IMAP client at it temporarily.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17798 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 06:10:39 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17798 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17793 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 06:08:01 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17793 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17797 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 06:07:49 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17797
I read both those books too, and found that David Allen's GTD system - which I tried hard to use for quite some time - required too much moving of things around.

As for Tim Ferris, well, let's just say that the title of his book is intentionally fantastical. He doesn't have anything approaching a normal job, so anything he says should be taken with a mine of salt. :-)

But again, if it works for you, that's all that's important.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17796 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 06:02:59 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17796 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17795 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 06:00:13 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17795 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17794 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 03:20:11 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17794
The larger one's mailboxes are and the more email that's simply accumulated, especially in the inbox, the more "costly" everything will be. That ranges from longer mailbox sync/update times with the mail server, much higher data throughput needs (extremely important for mobile users) through to longer and larger backups (Time Machine or clones).

I find that managing my mail on an annual basis allows for very simple mailbox rotation, exporting and trimming.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17791 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 23:54:22 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17791 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17788 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:15:53 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17788 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17786 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:10:55 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17786 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17784 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:38:52 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17784 ]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17782 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:47:24 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17782 Getting Things Done by David Allen and later,
the Low Information Diet by Tim Ferris (a chapter in 4 Hour Work Week).

Key features

- only check twice a day & always process to empty

- discipline to only read each message once

- NO folders, just archive or delete

- a trusted system for actions that I can't perform straight away (for me it's OmniFocus)

- train my friends & colleagues through constant feedback & auto-reply messages]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17778 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:18:38 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17778 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17777 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:15:47 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17777 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17776 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:51:59 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17776 Its an aid. It doesnt read my mail or reply, but like a good tool, it is intuitive, rarely fails and adapts subtly over time. Strong recommendation from me.
(BTW Mailbox absolutely failed for me too, within 5 minutes of loading it it was deleted.. and I waited and waited!)]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17775 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:35:16 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17775 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17771 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 08:14:54 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17771 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17768 Sun, 24 Feb 2013 18:12:06 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17768 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17765 Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:16:16 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17765
I can't speak to other webmail systems, most of which I've been unimpressed with, but Gmail's search is far faster and better than Spotlight's in my experience. It should be - if there's one thing Google knows, it's searching.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17764 Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:11:31 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17764 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13586?rss#comments_17763 Sun, 24 Feb 2013 15:14:00 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13586#comments_17763
I am still very conservative about e-mail and do not like filters as Adam also points out that one does not tend to read filtered out messages. So apart from 1-2 filters I sort manually everything. I delete as much as I can, then skim the headers of mailing-list messages and then sort them away. Then flag important messages that needs to be acted upon and answers the ones that could be answered quickly and file yet more away into appropriate mailboxes. I add all sent messages to my Inbox as I have never figured out why anyone would want to have them apart from the incoming related messages (do you save ordinary letters in different boxes depending on Sent/Received?). So my Sent mailbox is always empty for all my accounts.

When I get time I trim down the Inbox, which I just did this Friday going from +2200 messages to 267 in my work e-mail account. Joe has a point in not using the Inbox as a to-do list, but there are items there that are not easily translated into to-do items and even if it would be possible to do so, this act itself is time consuming, so I divide attention to to-do things between the Inbox and Notes (which works very nice with iCloud … (if one is not too quick …)). I tried special programs for to-do administration, but often they add to much "overhead" to me where I need to think of the programs working instead of what I should do. I complement this with noting things of importance in 1Password and FileMaker and documents in Dropbox (+ some on my own MBA). It is not perfect, but I find it hard to circumvent direct checking of everything that comes in to the mailbox (fortunately I do not have too many mailing-lists to follow, but I also unsubscribe if needed).

I do worry a bit for people having over 20000 e-mails in their Inbox (and I have seen a couple of business bosses in situations like that). I cannot appreciate the trend of moving toward webmail - I use Spotlight to find things from previous mails + other things on my computer in the same search - how do you do that with webmail? (It does not come across as a serious alternative to me.)]]>