Getting Things Done in Apple Mail
You can spend a lot of time blogging. That’s my experience. You kid yourself that you are doing something productive to make the world a better place, but really you are just surfing around and waiting to see if more people on the East Coast or in California hit your blog before Morning Tea or whether more people in London or New York fool around on Fridays, reading your blog instead of working.
It’s not sustainable. Something has to give – either you blog less or get more efficient about the rest of your life so that blogging-time is not threatened. Obviously, one chooses the latter option.
I remember reading a piece by Merlin Mann of 43Folders fame on “The inbox makeover” and today I read about “Using Thunderbird to get things done” on a blog called the entropic principal.
I like to think that Mail.app can do anything that Thunderbird can. Mouse-less spam reporting? No problem! Getting things done? No problem!
Using Mail Act-on and MailTags (Thanks, Scott!) I set up a “Getting things done”-esque Inbox after the jump. If you need to be more efficient too, spend some time checking it out.
I’ve found it hard to beat the summary of “Getting Things Done” in the entropic principal entry:
GTD is heavily dependent on keeping track of “next actions”, essentially a comprehensive to-do list. The idea is to know what you’re not working on so you can make reasonable choices about what’s important to work on right now. The concept of the “In” box is core – for every item you take out of “In”, there are only a few options: toss it in the trash, decide on a required next action, or file it for reference. (Technically, there’s also “waiting for somebody else” and “defer until later”, but these are next actions too.)
“Next Actions” and “the Inbox” seem to be the guts of it. It reminded me of something I was once told years ago in a professional development seminar, before email was widely used. “The key to being productive”, the consultant told us, “is to only touch each piece of paper that comes across your desk once. Just once.” (How we laughed! We were young and hadn’t yet seen much paper in our lives.)
So, the first step in setting this up in Apple Mail is to use MailTags to create projects that I will use to label the emails. I created six projects – Action Required, Wait, Defer, Archive, Delete and Untagged.
Then, I created six rules in Mail Act-on, setting the background colour for each email to a particular colour and labelling it with the appropriate MailTags project. I set them to the numbers 1-6, so that Control-1 (and so on) are quick and memorable shortcuts.
Then, also following the lead in the Thunderbird article, I created a Smart Mailbox, set to match any of these three conditions – MailTags Project is “Action Required”, “Wait” or “Untagged”. I charged through my inbox, faster than I thought I would, marking all the emails.
My Smart Mailbox now shows me everything that I either need to act on, wait for someone else to act on (and that usually means chasing them) or that I have still to make a decision about.
I could have set up six mailboxes, one for each project, but (i) that would be overkill and (ii) I already have a lot of mailboxes in my Mailbox Drawer and I like to be able to see them all at once without scrolling up and down.
There you have it – a functioning “Getting Things Done” set up in Apple Mail. Will it make me more efficient? I’ll let you know.
UPDATE: More GTD posts on Hawk Wings
Got some things done in Apple Mail, Part I
Got some things done in Apple Mail, Part II
AppleScript to create and run a GTD “Tickler file”
GTD Tickler file: Another approach with MailTags
Transfer Mail.app emails to your kGTD Inbox
Similar Posts:
- Got some things done in Apple Mail, Part I
- Two more apps offer MailTags integration
- GTD Tickler file: Another approach with MailTags
- MailTags: Irresistable force meets immovable object
- Thunderbird, Growl and Getting Things Done
Tags: Apple Mail, Apple Mail Tips, getting things done, gtd, mail act-on, mail.app, mailtags, Productivity, rules, thunderbird
October 21st, 2005 at 11:36 am
I might be a little slow here but how is this helpful. I like the concept of being more efficient and I’ve even set it up the way you described, but it appears I’m just moving everything from my inbox to another mailbox … I already naturally file things that I want to archive, if I want to delete something I just delete it and if something is deferred then I’m still going to have to do something to it later on anyway aren’t I?
Love your blog, it’s been a great help (or distraction I’m not sure which :-D).
October 21st, 2005 at 12:02 pm
A distraction, definitely ;-)
In answer to your question; I don’t know.
I am not a “Getting Things Done” True Believer by any means. In fact, I am innately suspicious of all this kind of talk.
I wrote the entry partly to show that Apple Mail could do it (with some plug-in help) and partly to keep an open mind and see for myself if it would make me more efficient.
I think the idea of the “Next Actions” smart folder is precisely to wean you off the inbox and to focus your attention just on the tasks that need doing.
It also helps you prioritise. Labelling the emails in the inbox is a process of making choices that ought to shape your working patterns. By staying out of the inbox and in the “Next Action” folder, you are not tempted to spend half-an-hour replying to Aunt Daisy when there are short- and middle-term tasks that need doing.
That’s my hunch. I’m going to give it a go. And maybe read some more about “Getting things done” on 43Folders to inform my attempt.
But let me know how it goes for you.
October 21st, 2005 at 12:33 pm
I have a friend who is GTD crazy. So I’m giving it a shot.
I’ve ended up creating an Action Required and a Waiting Smart Mailbox. This way I MailTag and move things out of the Inbox when they fit into either of those categories or are able to filed or deleted. I used Mail Act-On to create rules for Action Required, Waiting and Archive. I needed the Archive rule to get things out of the Action Required or Waiting Smart Mailboxes when they were dealt with.
I decided that defer was something I wouldn’t use, delete wouldn’t apply because if I Mail Tagged things then I wouldn’t delete them, I’d archive them and Untagged was just an opportunity to be lazy, everything that comes into the inbox must be tagged or filed.
We’ll see if I get more productive or just spend more energy trying to remember new short keys. :-D I’ll let you know.
October 21st, 2005 at 7:37 pm
My delete and archive act-on rules also move things straight to the trash or my archive.
The defer rule is part of the triage, I guess. The emails that you come back to when the important ones are done.
My current remembering problem is a confusion between the delete and archive keyboard shortcuts. I need to sort that one out ;-)
October 25th, 2005 at 1:27 am
[...] Over the weekend, I set up Apple Mail’s Inbox so that I could experiment with “Getting Things Done”. [...]
October 29th, 2005 at 12:16 am
This is a cool idea. I’ve decided to set things up intially exactly as you have, and then tweak if necessary once I understand it. A couple of questions:
1. You talk about setting up a smart folder; wouldn’t a smart mailbox make more sense?
2. And is your Archive a smart mailbox or a standard one?
October 29th, 2005 at 1:42 am
1. Thanks for pointing that out. You’re quite right. I’ve changed it.
2. My Archive is a standard mailbox on an IMAP server.
I’d love to know how you get on, and whether it makes you work more efficiently. I’m still trying to decide.
October 30th, 2005 at 9:21 am
[...] Over the past few days, I have been reorganising my rules in Mail.app to match some new server arrangements and as part of grappling with Getting Things Done. [...]
November 10th, 2005 at 6:42 am
I’ve noticed that when setting a tag to move to a smartfolder, it doesn’t actually move the original message to the folder instead it only copies it there. I find that not a useful feature, is there anyway around this ?
I think by setting the rule itself to move to a folder will work but not on the smart folder only on a regular folder.
November 10th, 2005 at 7:49 am
Hi a.
Well, Smart Folders don’t really exist. They are “virtual mailboxes”, just dynamically-updating saved searches. It’s not a folder of its own, just a list of search criteria saved in an XML file called SmartMailboxes.plist in your Mail Folder.
Sure. You can’t actually “move” a message to a smart mailbox. You can only flag it in a particular way so that it matches the search criteria for the smart mailboxes and thus shows up “virtually” in that folder.
November 10th, 2005 at 10:47 am
[...] In the comments to a post on Getting Things Done in Apple Mail, a poster commented: I’ve noticed that when setting a tag to move to a smartfolder, it doesn’t actually move the original message to the folder instead it only copies it there. I find that not a useful feature, is there anyway around this ? [...]
November 18th, 2005 at 9:56 am
[...] A while ago I blogged my first attempt to set up Apple Mail to work with David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system. [...]
November 21st, 2005 at 12:09 am
[...] Part Two is about the book and about how I’ve modified my Mail Act-on and MailTags to help me get some things done better than my first attempt at implementing it. (All of which you will find after the jump… ) [...]
December 31st, 2005 at 3:00 am
[...] Getting Things Done in Apple Mail. Never was a niche market focussed on time-efficiency willing to spend so much time reading about how to do it :-) [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 6:29 am
[...] The best thing I found on the site, though, was his article on implementing a GTD system in Mail. I can’t say I really know much about GTD other than what I’ve read over at 43Folders, but what I’ve learned has been very helpful in helping me be more productive and get a better handle on all the stuff I’m juggling. [...]
March 6th, 2006 at 3:53 am
[...] [Read On…] [...]
May 5th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
What is the difference between a Mail Tag which appears to be in the form of keywords and a Mail Project which is a dropdown menu.
Is there a proper way to use both ?
May 6th, 2006 at 8:23 am
I guess that the proper way to use them is the way that works for you and makes you more productive.
Myself, I use the Project category as a “top level” marker, sorting the mail that belongs to particular spheres of activity at work, mail from the family, mail relating to freelancing projects, and so on.
The keywords I use for further sorting within the project categories. So, for example, my GTD actions – @Action, @Waiting, @Defer – are keywords. When paired with Smart Folders that match – say – @Action, they show me a list of the things that need to be done across all the different projects.
This system works well for me, but might not be the only way.
August 9th, 2006 at 2:42 am
[...] The last tip was from Hawk Wings, a blog for tips on using Apple’s Mail program. The article is about using Apple’s Mail.app as a system to recreate a particular type of workflow from David Allen’s book “Getting things Done”. [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 9:09 am
[...] Getting Things Done in Apple Mail [...]
April 29th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Maybe I just need sleep, but I’m having a slight disconnect with the instructions here:
>Then, I created six rules in Mail Act-on, setting the background colour for each email to a particular colour and labelling it with the appropriate MailTags project. I set them to the numbers 1-6, so that Control-1 (and so on) are quick and memorable shortcuts.
I’ve setup rules for Mail Act-on to give me 6 colour choices. But I can NOT figure out how to do “Control+1-6″ shortcut assignments to match that colour with the appropriate Smart Mailbox.
Am I missing something?
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:53 am
I’m kicking the MailTags tires and I just ran into the same thing. The way to get matching colors is to use that magnifying glass (found in the Colors window), hover over the color in the Rules area and click on that color. The selected color will be transferred to the Colors window — from there, drag the newly identified color down to one of the little boxes found at the bottom of the Colors window. Do that process for each of the colors you want to use and then head over to the MailTags area, call up the project you want to set the matching color to and look in the Colors window’s row of boxes. You should see your colors from earlier — I’m sure you can handle the rest.
June 25th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
[...] you can’t wait for Joe’s next installment you can browse through past posts of mine (one, two, three) on getting things done with Mail Act-on and MailTags. Or read them now and see how [...]
July 18th, 2008 at 1:56 am
You know, the efficiency of Mailtags and Mail-Acton’s coloring and auto-labelign is so potent that I hope apple catches on and upgrades mail.app to include those features by default in the next big upgrade of mail.app!