Email folder for every project?

T

toremor

0
Hi!

I'm trying to empty my INBOX with aprox. 250 emails that have to be sorted out in one way or the other. I can put a lot of them in @ACTION/@WAITING.. and a lot in a someday/maybe folder. But there is more...

My biggest problem is with emails that are connected to projects. Where do you put them, so you easily can connect them to a project?

Do you make a separate email-folder for every project?

(PS: I can't/don't want to use Outlook, and don't know too much about how the Outlook plugin works)
 
I do the same thing.

I'll start by putting actionable emails into a single folder named @Action Support, but if I get more than a couple on the same topic I find it easier to put them into a separate email folder. I usually make them sub-folders of @Action Support (Outlook).

Mark
 
I might be doing it wrong :-) but I have folders for every major "topic". I manage several projects (from my company's point of view), and dozens or scores of projects (from a GTD point of view), so I might have one, rather full, folder for a bundle of related projects (e.g., Client X revenue system). On the volunteer side of my life, I also have folders for major topics, e.g., the city cycling committee, or for major players in my life (e.g., my significant other, my daughter, a few of my very best friends).

Cheers, richard
 
Inbox - folder for each project

This is a particular area that I have found confusing when trying to implement GTD. I have tried several models.

Model 1. Initially, I had a folder for each context (e.g. @Computer, @Online, @Agenda, etc), but I soon found that I was using these folders as alternatives to my context lists. In other words, I would have emails in these folders that weren't on my lists, as well as things on my lists that weren't in these folders. So, my lists were becoming split in half. This may not bother some people, but it made things difficult for me, especially when I was away from my email software program.

Model 2. So, I switched to having one @Action folder, where I put everything that is related to a NA, then I started storing emails that were related to a project but not to an NA in relevant Project folders. But as most of my project work concerns files on the hard disk, I hardly ever looked in these email folders. And having a folder for each project would have quickly led to 60+ folders.

Model 3. So, I switched to my current model. NA-related emails go in @Action folder; emails that I've finished with go in a Reference folder. This makes processing much simpler for me (which is a good thing, of course), and decreases the temptation to put it off. The one thing I was concerned about; not being able to find an email relating to a project; has not been a problem, as I find the search tools I use are excellent for finding things when I need them.

Well, these are the methods I've tried, and this third one works well for me.

Mike
 
I use project folders in the same way that I would in my regular filing cabinet. Every e-mail related to a project gets stored in the project folder except for @action and @waitingfor e-mails.
 
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