One of the things I wrote down on my brain dump list was to process the rest of my emails. The thing is, I have many, many email accounts. However, I only have one "main" email account, where any and all emails received from any of my accounts (university email, work email, family/friends email) gets funneled into the main one. I rarely check the others.
Now I want to process all of those emails to get down to Inbox Zero. However, I already have a tagging and filter system in place which I'm comfortable with that I set up years ago, but it organizes email by category, and not by GTD contexts. I also tend to be a huge "pack rat", as in I save pretty much every email I get and rarely delete emails.
I know it's going to be a long run (I probably have over 3000 emails to go through at the very least), so I'd like to ask for some advice for setting up my email account for GTD.
As an example of the current way I categorize my emails, I have labels such as...
- Education (for stuff when I was in high school)
---- SAT (emails from CollegeBoard, daily SAT tips/practice questions)
---- ACT
- Family
- Languages (I like learning languages, and subscribed to several "Word of the Day" sites which email me a word a day in different languages)
---- French
---- Spanish
---- Chinese
- Mail (mail from other accounts)
---- Other Gmail accounts
---- Yahoo!
---- Hotmail
- Sites (miscellaneous stuff like notifications, updates from certain websites)
---- Facebook
---- Twitter
---- LinkedIn
If I were to turn this into a more GTD-like reference system (for email only; I use Evernote for any other digital reference stuff), what would be a better way to organize these (if any)?
Thanks!
Now I want to process all of those emails to get down to Inbox Zero. However, I already have a tagging and filter system in place which I'm comfortable with that I set up years ago, but it organizes email by category, and not by GTD contexts. I also tend to be a huge "pack rat", as in I save pretty much every email I get and rarely delete emails.
I know it's going to be a long run (I probably have over 3000 emails to go through at the very least), so I'd like to ask for some advice for setting up my email account for GTD.
- First of all, just to clarify, do I also need to process all of my other email accounts, or just my "main one"? I'm thinking I can leave the others alone, since I'll primarily only be using my main one... right?
- Do you have a certain context/tag structure for GTD? For example, do you create Labels like @WaitingFor, @SomedayMaybe, and apply the labels to emails as you get them? What about nextaction? I plan on using a task list program separate from Gmail, so I'm not sure if, when I receive an email that's actionable, I should move it to a nextaction label, or just make a note of it in my Next Actions list... What do you guys do here?
- I'm thinking about keeping my existing tagging/filter system, but just calling it my "Reference" space for emails. Is this a good idea, or should I just start everything from scratch and organize it by project/alphabetical instead? (See example below.)
- Kind of an unrelated question, but is it typical to have your GTD "in box" split across multiple mediums and devices? For example, I have a paper tray for processing physical items I receive (mail, magazines, etc...), my Gmail for emails, my phone for recording visual/voice notes of ideas, and a notebook for when I have an idea but it would be inappropriate to use my phone (e.g. meetings). My only concern is remembering to process stuff out of all my inboxes (inboxen?). Is this something you guys do in a daily/weekly review, or whenever you have time?
As an example of the current way I categorize my emails, I have labels such as...
- Education (for stuff when I was in high school)
---- SAT (emails from CollegeBoard, daily SAT tips/practice questions)
---- ACT
- Family
- Languages (I like learning languages, and subscribed to several "Word of the Day" sites which email me a word a day in different languages)
---- French
---- Spanish
---- Chinese
- Mail (mail from other accounts)
---- Other Gmail accounts
---- Yahoo!
---- Hotmail
- Sites (miscellaneous stuff like notifications, updates from certain websites)
If I were to turn this into a more GTD-like reference system (for email only; I use Evernote for any other digital reference stuff), what would be a better way to organize these (if any)?
Thanks!