Next Actions

by Ed Eubanks Jr.

E-mail Tricks and Tools

I mentioned in a previous column that I would come back to the question of processing e-mail efficiently and effectively. I wanted to focus on a few tools that help me do that.

On E-mail Clients

Like many Mac users, I’ve tried a variety of different e-mail clients to see if they might better suit my needs. Every so often (most recently, it was after about 18 months) I get frustrated with one aspect of my mail client or another, and decide that I might find the solutions I’m searching for elsewhere. I’ve looked seriously at Postbox, Mailsmith, and Entourage. (The last version of Entourage I considered was the one bundled with Microsoft Office for Mac 2004; I would be willing to look at the 2008 version, but I use Word about twice a year and Excel even less—so I can’t justify the expense for the whole suite.)

Each time, I have returned to Apple’s Mail.

Mail has 99% of what I want in a mail client. I recognize that others will disagree (sometimes strongly and vehemently!). I have utter respect for your right to that opinion. But for me, Mail has it—unified inboxes, smooth integration with other tools, and it is stable and fast enough (usually) to keep me satisfied. Plus, there’s something to be said for familiarity; I’ve been using Mail for about eight years straight, and I’m very familiar with it. It would take me a while to settle into another client (which probably explains part of my willingness to keep coming back.)

Therefore, your mileage may vary significantly for what I have to say. Many of these tools are Mail-specific and simply wouldn’t apply (directly) to other clients.

(In all fairness, some of these tools might be either built-in or reproducible through scripts, macros, or something like an Automator action.)

Basic Setup

Along with Mail, I rely heavily on Google’s Gmail services for my server-side mail configuration. I have eight e-mail accounts that I use (more or less), and five of them are hosted by Gmail; the others happen to be the ones that I use infrequently or almost not at all (like my MobileMe mail account). Gmail offers me three things that I love: IMAP (thus, syncing between multiple Macs, my iPhone, and soon an iPad); a very usable and functional Web-based mail client (for those times when I’m on my wife’s Mac or another computer); and great server-side spam filtering.

(Here again, I know that some folks are dubious about sharing all of their mail contents with Google. In my view, anyone who is online has forfeited their privacy to some extent, and it’s all a matter of degrees after that—but that is another column for another day!)

I also make heavy use of SpamSieve, which I believe is the best spam filtering tool around. Michael Tsai, who also happens to be one of the editors of ATPM, has continually provided outstanding quality in the updates of this very mature tool. SpamSieve also works with a small horde of other mail clients, by the way.

I use SpamSieve on all of my Macs and wouldn’t do without it, but I have become more dependent on Gmail’s server-side spam filtering as well, mostly because of my mobile devices. I can deal with the occasional spam message on my iPhone; it’s easy enough to overlook these when checking mail quickly on the go. But when I notice a persistent source coming onto my iPhone, I’ll cut it off at the server level and never worry about it again.

I advise everyone I’ve worked with in setting up e-mail to get good spam filtering in place. If you don’t already have it, you’ll be amazed at how much time it saves you on e-mail: not only because you don’t waste time deleting stuff you’re not interested in, but also because you can more efficiently glance at new e-mails with trust that what you are seeing is useful, pertinent communication. (Remember, a key component of GTD is the trusted systems—that includes e-mail.)

I also encourage everyone to use IMAP. If you don’t have it available through your current server, look into one that does offer it. For efficient e-mail processing, you need to be able to sit down and know you can access the same messages everywhere. POP e-mail accounts (which were the default until just a few years ago, and still are in many cases) simply don’t offer this. The two exceptions to this are 1) if you only use one computer all the time, or 2) if your e-mail is completely walled off, so that you don’t access work e-mail at home, and vice-versa.

Advanced Setup

I make heavy use of folders. I have several sets of folders that fit with my GTD-style system. First, I have folders for @Respond, @Urgent, @Someday, and @Waiting. This are mostly self-explanatory, and they function in the same way that my physical set of 43 folders does.

The key difference is the distinction between @Respond and @Urgent. For my purposes, this is a helpful distinction because there are some e-mails that only require a response (but are otherwise urgent), and others that need action other than an e-mail response. For example, if someone e-mails to ask me to evaluate their article in the next two days, it would go into @Urgent; the reading/commenting is not simply e-mail work to be done. Someone else may write to ask a series of questions that I’ll respond to in-line, so that will be @Respond.

By the way: by putting the “@” at the front of these, Mail puts them at the top of the “stack” of folders in the sidebar. This means they are readily viewable no matter how many hierarchies of folders are open or closed. Mail’s alpha-numeric sorting of folders prefers numbers (and the symbols associated with the numbers) first, then alphabetical characters.

I also have other folders for archiving purposes. For a long time, these were broken down into either projects or categories of information. Consulting clients had their own folders, and I kept almost every piece of correspondence for each client. A book or other writing project might get a folder, as would things like group assignments for classes when I was a student. Many of these project folders were actually subfolders in categories. Just as with a physical file system, having these various folders made referencing my archived files much quicker and more efficient.

Recently, though, I’ve moved away from the multiple-folder archive system, and I just use a single folder labeled “archives.” There are two reasons why this is just as efficient for my purposes: first, Spotlight in Mail is faster than clicking through folders and subfolders. It’s faster and easier to search by sender, or to use a keyword or two to find archived messages, than it is to find the folder I need and scroll through a list of senders and subject lines. Second, I now archive my e-mail in DEVONthink Pro Office after it has aged beyond three months, and my system for filing in DEVONthink is much more robust (and also very searchable, both through DEVONthink’s search tools and through Spotlight).

You might use a different system for archiving—maybe it is pubblog’s MailSteward, C-Command’s EagleFiler, Ironic’s Leap, or another system. Regardless, you might find, as I did, that regular archiving not only speeds up your mail client, but it also streamlines your archiving and referencing process.

Or you may still prefer the multiple-folder approach. If so, there’s good help for you yet to come.

Inbox-Zero

If you aren’t already familiar with the concept of Inbox-Zero—well-articulated by Merlin Mann, so much so that I need not re-cover it here, then the next thing for you to do is to read up on that concept.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it is impossible to process e-mail efficiently without keeping your inbox cleaned out. However, I do lean toward thinking that. For one thing, I’ve never encountered anyone whose typical practice was to leave all messages in their inbox who could convince me that they were efficient in processing e-mail. Rather, everyone I’ve ever met or worked with for whom that was the practice fell into one of two groups: either they simply didn’t rely on e-mail much as a regular, reliable means of communication (and in many cases this was because they weren’t able to trust e-mail as a reliable tool because of their cluttered inbox); or, they were frequently frustrated and bogged-down by the many e-mails that they left unattended for too long, and consequently were often slow to respond even to more time-sensitive messages.

Another reason I lean that way is because of my convictions that the GTD principles are useful and applicable everywhere. That means that, just as you would be negligent in leaving your physical inbox cluttered and unattended, you are also negligent if you leave your e-mail inbox in that state. Good GTD practice stipulates that you regularly process the contents of your inbox—and by processing, I don’t mean looking at it and then putting it back in the box! This is true for papers in a file tray, and its true for messages in an e-mail client inbox.

Processing Tools

The goal, then, is to process all of those e-mail messages. In other words, to get those messages put into places where they will be present and accessible when you are ready to put them to use. And in my view, processing efficiently means doing that as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

I make regular use of a couple of tools that allow me a great deal of speed in e-mail processing.

One tool that I have found useful is MailTags from InDev Software. MailTags allows you to attach keywords and project tags to messages, as well as notes and color-coding. You can even use MailTags to create events and tasks in iCal. MailTags is Spotlight-compatible, and the tags are also recognized by Google Desktop. Especially if you’re keeping your messages in Mail for a long time, MailTags is helpful for appending markers that will help you find messages and act on them. However, MailTags also works with MailSteward, Leap, and EagleFiler. (They do not transfer to DEVONthink, however.)

Mail Act-On, also from InDev Software, is one of the best tools in my toolbox for rapid action on individual messages. A couple of keystrokes allow you to perform an extraordinary set of actions automagically on each message. Whether you simply want to move messages to other folders or automate elaborate actions when processing, Mail Act-On is probably the number one tool that I use for processing Mail. Naturally, Mail Act-On and MailTags work very well together, and it is easy to add these tags to messages through Mail Act-On.

I also like SignatureProfiler by Little Known Software. SignatureProfiler lets you take signatures much further in terms of things like embedded HTML, adding current iTunes tracks, Skype availability, or random quotes. I attach a signature to almost every e-mail I send, and while I don’t make use of stuff like the iTunes tracks and Skype, I do like the HTML embeds. You might also find a lot of efficiency gained by making use of signatures in the same way that Michael Hyatt does—that is, to build templated e-mail responses through signatures. If so, then SignatureProfiler may be a great tool for your signature/template-building.

If you don’t want to use signatures that way but still need templates for e-mailing, MacTank’s MailTemplate might be the thing for you. I’ve used it, and love how it essentially allows me to do a mail-merge via e-mail instead of printed snail-mail. I’m still looking for a tool that will allow a different kind of template—where I have a set group of addressees, sometimes utilizing multiple addresses from the same card in Address Book. (Anyone have a suggestion for me? Add it to the comments for 1,000 brownie points!)

Using these tools, I can process a surprising volume of e-mail very quickly. I don’t get nearly the volume that some guys do, but I do get between 50 and 100+ e-mails on a busy day; I check my mail at different intervals, and find that I can usually deal with 20 or so e-mails in less than 10 minutes, especially by making use of my @Respond and @Urgent folders (these get processed in my brief mail-checking intervals, then get “scheduled” as tasks in my next review): I respond to those messages that will take me only a minute or two to answer, file/archive those I need to keep, and put the rest into one of the four actionable folders I mentioned above.

If you’re one of those guys who needs to be notified every time a new message comes in, you might look into InDev’s MiniMail, or Growl plus a plugin like GrowlMail. I used to be one of those guys, but a while back I changed my setup entirely: I turned off automatic mail checking, turned off the “badges” in the Dock to tell me how many unread messages I have, and started checking my messages at certain times/intervals during the day. (A confession: I’ve recently found myself checking it much more often, so I will either need to renew my disciplined efforts to quit checking e-mail so often or go back to the old system! I’ll still probably leave the “badges” off in the Dock, though.)

Rules and Scripts

Now we’re really getting somewhere, but there’s one more thing I do to make my e-mail usage much more efficient. Rather, there’s one more thing I don’t do, because I have some tricks to keep me from having to deal with certain kinds of e-mail on a regular basis.

I have signed up for a couple of e-mail groups, as I’d bet many readers have as well. These aren’t spam, but (in my case) neither are they must-read, mandatory stuff that I need to deal with right away. I have a rule for each one, therefore, that puts those messages into a unique folder for each group. Mail serves me by giving these folders badges with unread messages, so I know they are there when I want to read them, but I don’t have to process each one. The downside to this is that I’m sometimes (or often) late to a conversation, but it’s worth it to me to avoid the processing. Note: I don’t recommend this for groups or lists that are time-sensitive for you! For me, none of my groups are.

Like so many people, I have family and friends who seem to thrive on forwarding cute and/or funny messages to others en masse. 99% of the time (or more!) I’m totally uninterested in these, so I have a rule set up to automatically put forwarded messages in the Junk box: if the subject line contains either “fw” or “fwd” then it is dumped. I also have a few relatives who are especially repeat-offenders, so I have unique rules for them (From = their name and Subject contains “fw”), because of Mail’s tendency to favor those messages from people in your Address Book.

Why put them in the Junk folder? Because I do periodically check my Junk folder for errant messages. As good as SpamSieve is, probably once a week I get a message that I need or want to read. (Thankfully, SpamSieve makes it very easy to “train” those as good messages.) And sometimes—maybe every couple of months, or once a quarter—I’ll come across a forwarded message that I actually want. Because my rule sends those to Junk (instead of Trash) then I can find these and read them.

Not Perfect

There are some things that I would change if I could (or if I could figure them out!). For example, I would like to have a rule that recognizes messages that are sent to me, along with a lot of others (maybe more than 10 addressees?), and have those automatically set aside in a “Mass Mailings” folder. I know some clients will do this, and I’d like a way for Mail to do it too, but not so much that I’ll give up my existing system.

Still, I’ve reduced the time and mental energy that goes into processing e-mail down to a fairly slim amount. These tools and tricks work for me. Maybe they’ll be helpful for you as well.

About the List

There are a lot of things happening on the iPad/iOS platform, and these probably merit a round-up or at least a look of some sort. For now, I have added notations about “iPad Presence” in the list below, and I’ve included the information that I have been able to gather. Feel free to comment with more, if you know about them.

I always welcome any feedback on my list or suggestions for additions. I don’t always add every suggestion, but I’ll look at them and evaluate whether they fit with my goals for this column.

Locally Installed GTD Applications

EasyTask Manager

Developer: Orionbelt.com

Current Version: 2.1

Price: $20

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: Yes

QuickSilver Plug-in: Yes

Web-app Sync: Yes

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: App (free); Web app (free)

iPad Presence: App (free), Web app (free)

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: Windows version available; automatic advance of uncompleted due tasks to today.

News: None

Frictionless

Developer: Twin Forces

Current Version: 2.0d18

Price: Free, open-source

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: No

QuickSilver Plug-in: Yes

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: None

iPad Presence: None

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: Quick-entry box; fuzzy repeated actions.

News: None

Ghost Action

Developer: Ghost Park Software

Current Version: 1.3.2

Price: $20

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: Yes

QuickSilver Plug-in: No

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: Sort of—a non-syncing application ($10)

iPad Presence: None

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 only

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: .Mac syncing (without iCal running); PDA/iPod syncing; two-way iCal syncing.

News: None

iCog

Developer: HensPace

Current Version: 1.90

Price: Free

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: No

QuickSilver Plug-in: No

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: None

iPad Presence: None

OS Requirements: Unknown

Required Applications: Python 2.4 or later

Distinguishing Features: Compatible with any OS running Python (including Windows); very simple text-only utility.

News: None

mGTD

Developer: Jeff Fisher

Current Version: 1.3

Price: Free

Development Status: Pre-final

iCal Sync: No

QuickSilver Plug-in: No

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: None

iPad Presence: None

OS Requirements: None (Mori template)

Required Applications: Mori 1.6.11

Distinguishing Features: Expands Mori (digital notebook) functions to include GTD principles.

News: None

Midnight Inbox

Developer: Midnight Beep Softworks

Current Version: 1.4.4

Price: $35

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: Yes

QuickSilver Plug-in: No

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: App “coming soon”

iPad Presence: App ($15)

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: Action timer; quick-note and quick-action hot keys; Mail compatible; automatic data collection.

News: The “touch” application is finally here for iPad. It’s marked as 50% off, which suggests that the price will eventually be close to $30. Initial reviews are not favorable, however. The iPhone version is still unavailable. The Leopard-compatible version 2.0 of the Mac application is still “coming soon.”

OmniFocus

Developer: Omni Group

Current Version: 1.7.5

Price: $80

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: Yes

QuickSilver Plug-in: Yes

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: App ($20)

iPad Presence: None

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.8

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: Mail compatible and Spotlight compatible; simple interface with powerful view features.

News: None

Pluto menubar

Developer: MOApp Software Manufactory

Current Version: 5.1.1

Price: €16 (about $24)

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: Yes

QuickSilver Plug-in: Yes

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: None

iPad Presence: None

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: This is a menu-bar application, but don’t be fooled—it is a very fully featured GTD tool. There is a lot to see here, and you won’t find any of the standard features you’re looking for missing. Note the full-screen editing, searching, tags, contacts, and priorities.

News: None

Ready, Set, Do!

Developer: Todd Vasquez

Current Version: 1.4.5

Price: $30

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: Yes

QuickSilver Plug-in: Yes

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: None

iPad Presence: None

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: A very different approach using a set of AppleScript routines to impose organization and communication across a computer’s entire file system; productivity scoring; help with files and tasks related to meetings; multiple language support.

News: A very incremental release that includes some bug fixes.

TaskPaper

Developer: Hog Bay Software

Current Version: 2.2.1

Price: $19

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: No

QuickSilver Plug-in: No

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: App ($10)

iPad Presence: App ($10)

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: Simple text-based system; no-frills; intentionally designed as an alternative to more fully featured systems.

News: The iOS app is now compatible with both iPhone and iPad.

The Hit List

Developer: Potion Factory

Current Version: 0.9.3.20 (beta)

Price: $50 (pre-order)

Development Status: Beta

iCal Sync: Yes

QuickSilver Plug-in: No

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: No

iPhone Presence: No (but indicated as “coming”)

iPad Presence: None

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: List view and “card” view; task timer; system-wide quick-entry; tabs allow good project management; AppleScript support; tags and prioritization of tasks.

News: Latest version extends the beta license, but still no substantial development on this application.

Things

Developer: Cultured Code

Current Version: 1.3.4

Price: $50

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: Yes

QuickSilver Plug-in: No

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: App ($10)

iPad Presence: App ($20)

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.11

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: iCal sync; repeating tasks; Mail compatibility; tags; network and multi-computer operation; and import/export options.

News: Lots of bug fixes in the incremental release.

Thinking Rock

Developer: Avente Pty Ltd

Current Version: 2.2.1

Price: Free, open-source

Development Status: Release

iCal Sync: No

QuickSilver Plug-in: No

Web-app Sync: No

Print Lists: Yes

iPhone Presence: None

iPad Presence: None

OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4

Required Applications: None

Distinguishing Features: Cross-platform compatibility through Java; interactive collection and processing; can be run off of a flash drive.

News: I’m still unsure about how to address future upgrades and development of Thinking Rock. In addition to version 2.2.1, version 3.1 is available and in active development—and is a paid application at $40 for the first year, $10 for each additional year. Probably the next list will switch the coverage to the paid, active-development version (with a note about the free/open-source version 2.x).

What To Do

Developer: Objective Satisfaction

Current Version: 1.3.2

Other Browser/Web-based Task Managers

GTD and Task Management Wikis

iPhone Applications (not Web Apps)

Also in This Series

The Last Action · May 2012
Master List, April 2011 · April 2011
GTD for iOS/iPad · February 2011
E-mail Tricks and Tools · August 2010
Master List, May 2010 · May 2010
Inbox Overload · April 2010
Master List, February 2010 · February 2010
Getting Back on the GTD Wagon · December 2009
Master List, June 2009 · June 2009
Complete Archive

Reader Comments (2)

Todd V · August 8, 2010 - 20:31 EST #1: As always, great post, Ed. I really enjoy reading these. For those who use Ready-Set-Do! on their macs, there is a new set of podcasts, one of which discusses how to handle processing email with Ready-Set-Do!. The one on handling email can be found here.

Mark Aufflick · August 15, 2010 - 07:04 EST #2: I can also highly recommend Notify App http://vibealicious.com/apps/notify/ I have it notify me of new messages via growl and if i want to read and/or respond straight away, the in-menubar mail interface is perfect. That way I only open the full mail app a few times a day.

ATPM 16.08August 2010

Columns

Segments

How To

Extras

Reviews

Download ATPM 16.08

Next Actions

E-mail Tricks and Tools

On E-mail Clients

Basic Setup

Advanced Setup

Inbox-Zero

Processing Tools

Rules and Scripts

Not Perfect

About the List

Locally Installed GTD Applications

Locally Installed General Task Managers

Browser and Web-based GTD Applications

Other Browser/Web-based Task Managers

GTD and Task Management Wikis

iPhone Applications (not Web Apps)

Also in This Series

Reader Comments (2)

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ATPM 16.08
August 2010