DMGImproved Email Processing
I can't remember where I saw this tip, but I started doing it this week, and it's awesome.
Here's the deal: whenever you visit your email inbox, move every (yes EVERY!) mail into one of three folders:
- Actions, indicating that it represents something you need to do.
- Waiting, indicating that you're waiting for someone else to follow up on something. When that follow-up comes in, either move that follow up to the Actions folder and delete this message, or move this mesage to Actions. (Got all that?)
- Archive, indicating that you've read it, and no further action is necessary.
This certainly has the flavor of David Allen's Getting Things Done (which I highly recommend), but I'm sure I didn't get it from that book. I read it in a blog somewhere. I'll post the link when I remember where. (Marc Andreessen's, maybe?)
The original author recommended checking email only twice a day: once in the morning, once at night. I can't get away with this, but the system works anyway.
Pre-sorting email into "requires further attention" and "just for reference" means I only ever look at a handfull of messages at a time, and reduces the mental overhead of dealing with email.