Emails and Actions

[Stephen Brown]

Hi,

For those of you that can’t link emails to actions, how do you know an email has a related action in your Action Support email folder?

 

[Oogiem]

I don't maintain an action support email folder at all now. Instad I move the related actions from emails out into my normal digital action support system as individual notes in DEVONThink. Any actions go into my task manager, Omnifocus and the note part says to see DT for support materials.

For me, the email app is a terrible place to keep anything actionable. It's almost worse than trying to kepe things in my head.

 

[Stephen Brown]

I don't maintain an action support email folder at all now. Instad I move the related actions from emails out into my normal digital action support system as individual notes in DEVONThink. Any actions go into my task manager, Omnifocus and the note part says to see DT for support materials.

For me, the email app is a terrible place to keep anything actionable. It's almost worse than trying to kepe things in my head.

Thanks for the reply.
What if you need the email to reply to?

 

[cfoley]

I try and reply using the 2 minute rule where possible.

When I can't, I move the email out of my inbox and add this to my @Computer list:
Email Stephen Brown a reply to his question about managing actionable emails (sent 2020-12-15).

This gives me enough information to locate the correct email to respond to.

 

[Stephen Brown]

I try and reply using the 2 minute rule where possible.

When I can't, I move the email out of my inbox and add this to my @Computer list:
Email Stephen Brown a reply to his question about managing actionable emails (sent 2020-12-15).

This gives me enough information to locate the correct email to respond to.

That’s interesting. Thank you.

 

[Gardener]

Thanks for the reply.
What if you need the email to reply to?

If I ever expect to need an email associated with an action/project, I'll add enough information to the action/project to allow me to search for the email--either a name and a date, or a phrase from the subject.

 

[Maximilian]

Hi,

For those of you that can’t link emails to actions, how do you know an email has a related action in your Action Support email folder?

I write the concrete action, that is related to the email, into my context list “E-Mail”.
For example “reply to John referring ...”
The email itself I put into the email-folder “Action”.

That means, that if I watch my context list “Email”, I see the actions I have to do.
If I decide to “reply to John referring ...”, I go in my email-program, open the folder “Action”, search the specific email and reply to John referring ...

PS: with some tools, like OmniFocus, you can add a link from that specific email to the action, which is written in your context-list “email”.
With that you save some time, because you don’t have to open the email folder and search the specific email.

 

[Oogiem]

What if you need the email to reply to?

I can't think of a case where I've had that as a need in recent history. I can always find it again in my archive if I really do but it's usually faster to send a new email with the details needed and cut out thr cruft that builds up in email strings.