The day after: inbox 18
One day back in the fray, and email has been working well for me. There are 18 messages left in my inbox, and they are all neatly tagged, so it’s clear what action they require.
There’s been a small change in the possible actions to apply to incoming mail. My system looks like this:
- delete (out-of-office replies, notifications about stuff I already know or am not concerned with, meeting acceptance notes…)
- reply (either immediately or tag in colour 1)
- add item to to-do list (either immediately — in Todoist right now — or tag in colour 2)
- reference (which often means uploading into a document management system and sharing the link; or just save locally; either immediately or tag in colour 3)
- archive (everything else)
I’ll likely need another category for vague ideas and future possible projects, and I can’t really help checking my email almost continuously, following every alert I receive.
The good thing is, the small number of remaining items are all colour-coded, and everything new will arrive without colour-coding at the top of the window. Much clarity gained.
chris @ November 29, 2007