

Ask HN: Please share your e-mail workflow, tips. - antileet

Hi,<p>I, like most people here, get a lot of email - mailing lists, bug
notifications, notifications from services I don't care about, and even the
occasional real email from friends and family. In short, my email became a
source agnostic dumping ground which served as a constant distraction and
annoyance. Everything from someone un-CCing themselves from a bug report, to
telling me about their marriage is suddenly equal.<p>I had some trouble dealing with it all, and felt there was information
overload and started looking at alternate means of getting the information
that actually matters to me.<p>I want to hear how you manage your email and information overload. Are
there some specific workflows like Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" which seem to
have worked for you? Are there any secret and interesting email clients
that help you deal with information overload?<p>My workflow is slightly better now. I use sup [1] to read and vim to write
my messages. I wrote my own tool [2] to deal with bugzilla and comment
notifications. I've learned to turn off email and check it only once every
few hours - which helped boost productivity at the expense of not being
instantly available.<p>So please, share your secrets! Thank you!<p>[1] - http://sup.rubyforge.org
[2] - http://anirudhsanjeev.org/projects/splatter
======
csomar
Okay, here's my experience with e-mailing.

Setup:

\- I use an ordinary Gmail Email (for 4 years). It gets around 200 email per
day (that's around 8 emails/hour).

\- Apart from the usual email, I have few other emails with domains (like
support@mydomain.com). I use Google apps for them and I forward all emails
that I receive from these domains to the main ordinary Gmail Email.

Benefits:

\- The ordinary email works like a repository for all my emails. By checking
it, I check all emails I have.

\- The domains emails make it easier for me to arrange emails and keep a
record of them. For example, I'm using a separate email address for my PayPal
account. This keeps a record of all received or sent payments. In the same
time, when I get a payment, the email show up on my primary email and then I
get notified without the need to check all my in-boxes.

Usage:

1- When at home (my office), I run Gtalk full time (rarely my friends nudge
me). When I get an email, GTalk pops up a box. I quickly read the email title.
If it's the usual spam (80% of my emails are useless), I just ignore it, if
it's an important one, I pause work and open my mail box.

2- When outside doors, I use my mobile to check emails. Doesn't have a regular
checking time, but when I feel I want to check I check. If there is an
important email, I read it; but most of the time reply when I get back home.

3- I sleep like all humans. When I wake up, the first thing I do (before
anything) is running my netbook, check emails, reply or read and then archive
them all. My inbox is now empty! A new day, get back at point 1.

Usability:

\- Make use of the Gmail Star (also Gmail keeps emails conversations gathered
in one email, that's the most useful feature).

\- Hit the Spam button

------
visitor4rmindia
I've been using David Allen's "Getting Things Done" methodology for about
three years now and I find it works really well.

When dealing with mail the principle I follow is to use the inbox purely as an
inbox and not a substitute "to-do" list.

What that means is I process each message, one at a time, starting from the
oldest. I don't skip ahead to "interesting" mails. If the mail can be handled
in under two minutes, I just do it. If not, I create a related task (in EMacs
org-mode (which is utterly fantastic but any old text file with categories can
be used)) and handle that _outside_ the mailing system.

The mail itself gets filed into a specific category archive folder for
reference. My inbox is almost always empty which is a GREAT feeling for some
reason.

EDIT: Thanks for the link to sup btw. I use mutt but the 'search' feature
seems tempting.

------
TallGuyShort
I've used a number of different email clients, but I think that the simplest
tools, if applied properly, should solve this problem. Trouble is, though, is
that's really specific to what mail you get.

When someone un-CCs themselves from a bug report, find something that's common
to every subject line (or better yet, the sending address, since it's probably
your tracking software's server), and make a filter for that. Also, I think
most clients allow you to distinguish between mails just to you and mass
emails. I would just make a folder for every category you can think of, set up
the filters as best you can, and then prioritize the categories. Emails that
are written solely to you and don't look like notifications you get on a
regular basis are probably the most important. Then replies, etc...

------
pramit
This may be useful for you

The Zen of Mastering E-mail: In Under 100 words [http://bighow.com/news/the-
zen-of-mastering-email-in-under-1...](http://bighow.com/news/the-zen-of-
mastering-email-in-under-100-words)

