Getting Things Done with Leopard Mail
Rory Bowman is taking to Leopard Mail with a passion. He has written up some pointers on “Getting Things Done” (GTD) 
with Mail’s new notes and to-do features.
He presents a sample screenshot using a note to list things that need to be done, talks about using Leopard Mail’s RSS feature to speed up the time you spend reading the web and what smart mailboxes are good for.
Unfortunately, my notes don’t sync to my iPhone as he suggests.
It’s not really a systematic attempt to implement GTD in Leopard Mail, but it is an interesting summary of the productivity-boosting features in Leopard Mail.
Myself, I am reluctant to incorporate the new features of Leopard Mail into a tweaked workflow for getting things done.
To tell the truth, I am bit underwhelmed by the notes and to-do features, the to-dos especially. Remember the Keynote at which Steve Jobs explained in an excited voice how he “lives in Mail”? Ah-a, I thought, that means we are now going to see something really special.
But in fact the implementation of to-dos is really crude. They are there, but the flexibility to display them sensibly (hide completed, show to-dos for upcoming week, show only a particular calendar, etc, etc) is missing. Perhaps that’s why he lives in Mail; the features are too underdone to help him get his work done and live outside Mail for a while!
The old way which uses only technology already available in Tiger is good enough for me.
I am waiting for Leopard MailTags to get its to-do and event creation features back.
How about you? Has Leopard Mail changed your productivity or workflow for the better, or do you (like me) still use it as if it were Tiger Mail, just a bit more shiny?
Tags: Apple Mail, getting things done, gtd, leopard mail, mail.app, mailtags, Notes, productiivity, to dosRelated posts
November 13th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Like you, I’ve been using it like Tiger but more shiny. However, I’m going to take a look at Rory’s post because Mail Tags (strange Due Date display behavior), Act-On (inconsisten operation) and Mail (not saving account passwords) itself have stumbled a bit in Leopard. I am hoping that all will be fixed with updates and am trucking on as best I can.
Glad to have your blog back !!!
November 13th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
I’m a heavy macports user and most ports on macports for Leopard are fairly broken. Yet, I’m not going back to Tiger for the simple reason I’d miss the new mail.app too much. I love the RSS features, the ToDo’s, the way it handles multiple smtp-servers, etc..
It has really changed my productivity workflow for the better, yes.
I love Leopard’s Mail.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:44 am
Not having been a very well organized person prior to Leopard I have to say I welcome my new ToDo overlord. I can see how it may not be the solution for the power ToDo-er but for me it’s been quite nice. Really, I’ve just been waiting for a post like this one to see how the more organize-abled are taking to Mail and how they’re using it.
You’re just full of good stuff today aren’t you?
November 14th, 2007 at 1:51 am
The To-Do feature in Leopard mail seemed nice at first, but I found that I couldn’t get it to do what I wanted.
I have an inbox folder where incoming mail is stored (moved from Incoming after junk mail is filtered out).
If I add a To-Do for an item and then move the mail item, the connectivity is lost. There’s also no way to easily see which messages have To-Dos associated with them.
Then I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea: create a Mail Act-On rule that would highlight a message (I used yellow), then run an Applescript to mark the item as a To-Do. At that point, I could rename the To-Do, etc.
Unfortunately, there is no way (at last that I can find) that would allow a rule or an Applescript to mark an item as a To-Do.
So… anyway, for me, the Notes and To-Dos are simply half-baked. I hope they get a little more done with a Leopard upgrade.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:39 am
For my needs, the new Notes and ToDos are a huge disappointment, especially the poor integration with my iPhone. I actually like the iPhone notes a great deal: readily accessed from the top level, and I can easily make and edit to-do lists like “Calls” and “Errands” and “Tasks.” But they don’t sync back to my MacBook; I can send them via email, but then they’re a mail message and uneditable.
Likewise, the Notes and ToDos on my MacBook are pretty handy, but syncing sends them into a submenu of my iPhone mail; I have to drill down to find them, and then I can only read them, not add to or edit them. In fact I’m lucky if I get that far: when I create a new note in Mail, it’s automatically created in my “On My Mac” folder, not my IMAP folder, so I have to physically move it myself to sync it, and then often get a message reading “No such mailbox exists.” (For that matter, the whole .Mac end of the iCal/Notes/ToDo experience strikes me as a shambles.) I’ve been trying out iGTD and OmniFocus, but insofar as Mail/iCal doesn’t help them interact with my iPhone, they’re useful only when I’m at home in front of my computer.
How does any of this help me Get Things Done? I’d sworn off Entourage a couple years ago, simply because it’s a Microsoft product, but to be honest I’m thinking seriously about adopting it again…
November 14th, 2007 at 4:27 am
I, too, am underwhelmed by Mail’s productivity tools and have not yet found a way to use the To Do’s in a way that is even remotely helpful. Frankly, I’ve never been happy with iCal’s To Do functions either.
I like my To Do’s to sit on the calendar day their To Be Done, thereby giving me my full day’s tasks and appointments at a glance, which neither iCal nor Mail let me do.
I’ve created a work-around: I use iCal’s all-day function for To Do’s. As there’s no check-off capability, I created a separate calendar titled “Done.” When I’ve completed the task, I change its calendar affiliation to Done and, hence, its color. If I don’t get it done that day, I slide it to the next day.
It’s not ideal, but it’s the best I’ve come up with me. I’d be interested in hearing if others also prefer their To Do’s to be more fully integrated with their calendar page and, if so, how they’ve worked it.
November 14th, 2007 at 5:16 am
Leopard Mail is being used in mostly the same way that Tiger Mail was, for my productivity needs. GTD processing of mail into Action, Waiting, etc. The problem is the almost fully functioning MailTags/ActOn combo used in conjunction with smart folders. Smart folders still do not recognize MailTag projects set to “none”. Once that is fixed, I’ll be back to my Tiger Mail productivity flow….with the added bonus of RSS feeds being included in addition to email.
As for notes & to-dos….those will remain in iGTD. Leopard’s implementation is too limited for my taste. Just hope Bartek updates the broken linking functionality soon.
November 14th, 2007 at 5:35 am
I’m afraid that Leopard Mail’s GTD features are both too limited and too annoying to implement to consider seriously as a replacment, or even a supplement, to the MailTags/ActOn combo.
(BTW, does anyone know what is happening with iGTD? As far as I know, there’s been nothing new since August, except a Leopard compatibility fix.)
November 14th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Stability is the main issue for me.
I’m using Notes to manage projects. These contain individual tasks, notes and attached reference material.
Individual tasks are managed by To-Dos.
I use a different iCal calendar for each GTD context.
The problem comes with trying to keep my Day Job Mac sync’d with my Home Mac. I’m losing a lot of links. Gmail IMAP is hugely problematic and entries kept On My Mac don’t seem to sync well at all.
Hey, there’s a new contender on the horizon…Filemaker Pro’s Bento. It’s lightweight (but customizable?) and does a nice job of linking to iCal and Address book. Too bad Mail isn’t integrated as well.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Thanks for the tip about Bento. I’ll have to check it out.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Having email as individual files has really fit in well with my productivity system. I use a system similar to GTD & “Do It Tomorrow by Mark Foster” and it is working wonderfully in Leopard. The basic premise is to get a handle on your inbox (and to clear it everyday) in order to better manage your time. I’m using a combination of the software app Hazel, color finder labels, and a couple regular and smart folders.
Everything that comes into a physical inbox (mail, desktop/downloads, ical) gets marked with a green “do it tomorrow” label. Everything that is in my inbox for more than a day gets changed to a blue “do it today” label. I can see all my emails, ical items, files, etc. in using smart folders and quickly focus on what I am supposed to get done today and see what I have waiting for me as I plan for tomorrow. I have a couple other folders like “urgent” (a smart folder- if anything sits in an inbox for more than 4 days it gets red) and an archive filing folder (a physical folder which I gives me up to 5 days to put the files away before they turn back to blue).
The biggest advantage is when I get through everything I should be getting through on a daily basis then I can make time for other things, or typically in my case attack my backlog.
November 17th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
The biggest plus for me in Leopard Mail is QuickLook for all the various attachments my colleagues send me in Word. This way I don’t have to open Word at all (trying to transition away from Office entirely.)
Second is Mail’s ability to detect date and time text and let me create an iCal event from it. That has saved time having to open iCal and manually transfer all the information.