Outlook GTD plugin - Copy messages instead of moving them

[lukebo]

Hi everybody!
I'm Luca, I'm pretty new to the GTD world! I recently finished the book... entering the enthusiast circle of the GTDers.

Since I spend my whole workday in front of a pc screen, using Outlook for managing my mail, tasks and calendar... I thought that installing and evaluating the GTD Outlook plugin was the first thing to do in order to organize the hi-tech side of my system.

I'm still familiarizing with the plugin features... It seems working very good.

But... There's one thing I haven't been able to configure that drives me crazy.

When you use an e-mail you received (or you sent) to create a new task... the mail is moved by the plugin into a separate folder named as the action category (@work, @errands, ...).
So the message disappears from the original place... and the destination folder gets full of different mails which can be sent items or received items.

That - according to me - is nonsense.

I save every mail I receive or send for future reference and for my "knowledge base"... and keep them all in "inbox" if it's a received item or in "sent" if is a sent item (i'm a fan of the "search, don't sort method").

So... the question is... is there any way to COPY instead of MOVE the e-mails used as base for new actions, leaving the original into its folder and having the copy in the appropriate action folder??

Thanks in advance!

Luca
Italy

 

[kewms]

If you search, rather than sorting, why does it matter where the email is filed?

Leaving messages in your inbox indefinitely is directly in conflict with the GTD philosophy, which states that your inbox(es) should be a collection point(s), not a storage point(s).

With that said, if you still want to do it, look on the Outlook Edit menu, where you will find an item labeled "Copy to Folder." (I don't use the Outlook add-in, however, so I don't know if it changes this menu item. )

Katherine

 

[lukebo]

If you search, rather than sorting, why does it matter where the email is filed?

True, but sometimes it happens you need to find a certain message sent by mr. x the day x at the time x. In that case browsing the whole "inbox archive" is more practical than looking into three or four separate folders that can contain both received and sent items.

Leaving messages in your inbox indefinitely is directly in conflict with the GTD philosophy, which states that your inbox(es) should be a collection point(s), not a storage point(s).

You are right Katherine, infact my real "inbox" is only a portion of my inbox archive. The portion is identified either by unread messages or marked messages.
Both are the only elements that can be in my real inbox. The rest is just a huge (and unique) archive of the mail I received/sent.

Manually copying the message back to the original folder will be my last (and less functional) alternative.

Thanks for your reply, Katherine!

-- Luca

 

[kewms]

True, but sometimes it happens you need to find a certain message sent by mr. x the day x at the time x. In that case browsing the whole "inbox archive" is more practical than looking into three or four separate folders that can contain both received and sent items.

I'm still confused. Why not just put Mr. X's name into your search tool and either browse its results or further filter by date? If your search tool can't scan several folders at once, you need a better tool.

Katherine

 

[Mark Jantzen]

Why Not File?

I use the Outlook plug-in and personally like that feature. My guess is they intended the Task (or Calendar for Defer) created to be your trigger reminder instead of the email itself. I like the ability to click "Open Mail" to bring that specific email to my attention.

But, the actionable emails are all moved to the same folder and FIND helps out.

Another option is to simply "file" the email into a folder. I use this for my Read/Review - FYI. I have a whole collection of folders for various emails and email groups where I don't use the plug-in functionality at all. I do the same for a large collection of emails related to specific projects.

Did you checkout the webcast with DA (link in the Products section)? I could never envision using the plug-in until I saw that and tried the free trial.

Good luck!
Mark