Two Sitting Ducks Pining for the days when blogs were cutting edge

31Jul/073

Email: Filer or Piler?

We were having a couple of after-work drinks today, and for a short time the topic of organisation, in particular email filing, came up. On one side, we had a guy that didn't really do any filing - everything was in his 'inbox'. Even more extreme was another person who didn't even delete meaningless emails - again, everything in the 'inbox'.

A colleague and I were on the other side, organisation is key. My particular aim is to reach 'inbox zero' every day. I hate seeing a list of items sitting there, applying their silent pressure to my brain. I think that you should act on an email as soon as you get it. Sure, that decision might be as simple as tagging it for action at a later date, but at least the decision is made, the email is tagged and can be filed away. Of course, the best key to use when making filing decisions is the delete key, and I recommend that you don't hold back in its use.

So what system do you use? Do you have a system? Is it a byzantine collosus of nested folders, or do you throw everything in a single archive? Or are you one of those scary people who just lives in the inbox?

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