Kelly Turner kicks things off with a confession about her bulging inbox, its 35,000 emails and the level of self-deception involved in telling herself that her system was working:

…I often lost track of messages that still needed to be dealt with. As new messages arrived and older ones disappeared from my screen, I seldom thought to scroll down to see what was still unread. And although I’d developed elaborate coping mechanisms (using colors and flags and searches to identify messages) simply having an ocean of e-mail in front of me made the process of answering and checking e-mail seem like a Herculean task.

This forms a nice segue to the first part of Joe Kissel’s three-part “email renovation” series. He begins with a series of tips on reducing the amount of traffic that comes into your inbox in the first place—dealing with spam, all those hilarious joke-a-minute emails that your friends and family insist on circulating, learning what belongs in Mail.app and what belongs in iChat and more.

Part Two is on “Meet your new filing system”. I’ll be amazed if it doesn’t mention Mail Act-on and MailTags , the two premier organisational plugins for Mail.app.

If 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 much better Joe’s tips are when he posts them!

Joe also takes the chance to put up some links to articles he wrote in February 2007 on “clearing away the clutter” in your inbox. Anything by Joe is worth the time spent reading it. These are no exception.

Finally, Joe has written a piece on coming to grips with notes and to-dos in Leopard Mail. He offers some smart tips on moving your calenders and to-dos to an IMAP account. However, be sure to read the comments as well and see what problems people are having with getting iCal to behave.mail.app, apple mail, productivity, ical, getting things done, gtd, inbox zero, email, life balanceSimilar Posts:

• Inbox Zero: Slash and Burn at 43 Folders
• Give Mail.app a complete productivity workout
• How to read your email
• Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger
• Got some things done in Apple Mail, Part I

There’s lots to read (Hawk Wings Greatest Hits 2006, Getting started with Hawk Wings and more) and a fat list of plugins and addons, full of things to play around with, while I’m gone.

Last year, I said I would take a break. But I broke down after two days and kept posting over the wonky dial-up connection at the beach.

This year I am determined to be stronger. Well, that is to say, someone I know very well is determined that I will be stronger.

Thanks for a great year. Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. Thanks for donating.

Have a most excellent Christmas and the finest of new years.

I’ll be back on 8 January. I’m looking forward to it.mail.app, apple mail, productivity, ical, address book, beach, life-balance, pastis on the patioSimilar Posts:

• Another statistical celebration
• The Big Break
• Taking a break…
• Belated Big Beautiful Blogless Beach Break
• iCal Day 2007: Brick-bats and iCal hats