I have been using e-mail for what seems like a very long time and I can’t really imagine living without it in the Information Age and Knowledge Economy. Thinking back I realize that my e-mail setup has changed slowly over the course of the years, with radical leaps now and then.
Especially for those of you “living” in their e-mail inbox, I have written this post to show you the evolution of my e-mail setup, hoping it will provide useful tips to you.
Phase 1, “Newbie”
We’re talking well over a decade ago here (well, it’s closer to 2 decades actually 
). E-mail was new to me, I used a single account, sometimes not even my own, and only sent an e-mail occasionally.
E-mail definitely didn’t form a structural part of my personal or professional life. Needless to say, processing and/or storing e-mails was not part of my daily routine back then.
Phase 2, “Chaos”
This is the phase in my life where e-mail really started to gain momentum. I was using different accounts, different e-mail programs, even different internet providers. E-mail was still not such a big part in my personal or professional life that I felt the need or even the inclination to organize my e-mails in any conceivable way… it was just stored in one big pile of stuff!
Phase 3, “Categories”
This was the Information Age and using e-mail had become a structural part of my personal but especially my professional life. I was desperately seeking for a convenient way to handle incoming and outgoing e-mails, for multiple accounts and multiple contexts. I was experimenting with categories, different folders for different people or topics, but usually incoming e-mails just piled up in my inbox. I was losing track of e-mails (and associated tasks) frequently. There was no reference system to speak of.
Phase 4, “Enlightenment”
This phase started a couple of years ago, when especially my professional life required me to create an e-mail setup for myself that allowed me to process e-mails in a more professional way. I was dealing with clients that needed me to do something and I was dealing with e-mails to clients and co-workers that I needed to keep track of. I decided that it was about time to crawl out of the black hole of the ever-growing and overflowing inbox. I created a simple but effective system for myself (inspired by standard time management principles and Stephen Covey).
- Incoming e-mail: dragged from the inbox immediately and dropped into either “Incoming - Important” or “Incoming - Unimportant”. Both folders are further divided into a “Done” and “Not Done” category.
- Outgoing e-mail: similar to the folders I created for incoming e-mail.
I started saving important reference material as PDF in a hierarchically structured digital system. My inbox was always empty, but of course e-mails were still rotting away in the other folders I had created without any action taken on them!
However, when it was working, it definitely was the best e-mail setup I have had up to that point.
Phase 5, “GTD - Lean and mean”
After discovering Getting Things Done, I took another radical leap in the evolution of my e-mail setup. E-mail has become an inextricable part of my personal and professional life, so it was about time to organize and optimize it… I refused to let my inbox dictate my life any longer!
So, I am now using an ultra-simple e-mail setup which consists of basically 2 folders:
- “Archive 2007 - Received”
- “Archive 2007 - Sent”
That’s it!
I create a separate mail archive for each year. Of course I have the standard inbox and outbox in my e-mail program, but they are always empty! Here’s how I handle e-mail using GTD principles:
- Incoming e-mail: I check e-mail frequently. If it’s not interesting or important I delete the e-mail or drag it to my archive immediately. If it requires action on my part, I print the e-mail before dragging it to the archive. The physical copy of the e-mail gets processed and handled like all other “stuff” in my GTD system.
- Outgoing e-mail: if I send e-mail that doesn’t need to be tracked, I simply store it in the archive immediately. If the e-mail needs to be tracked, I create the appropriate “Waiting For” next actions in my GTD system. If the e-mail is important for the physical file that I’m keeping for many clients, then I will print it and store it like all other stuff in my GTD reference system.
- Searching e-mails: to find a particular e-mail (or any other digital file for that matter) I rely completely on the excellent indexing and searching tool Copernic Desktop Search. Any printed e-mail material may be easily found in my simple but effective GTD reference system.
Conclusion
It has taken a considerable amount of time to get where I am today but now I can truly say that e-mails never get lost, actions related to e-mails always get done, I never forget to track important e-mails and reference material is archived in my GTD reference system! And most importantly, I do not have an overflowing inbox distracting me from what I really should be doing and I feel in control of my digital communication!
What does your e-mail setup look like and how has it changed after implementing Getting Things Done?
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[…] read a good article over at The Getting Things Done Blog that covers a GTD Email setup. Now this is something that I am not up to yet with my own GTD […]
Very nice description of your email set up here. Mine is rather similar. I have a folder called, “Actions” and after reading the email if it doesn’t go in “Archives” it goes in actions. This allows me to keep tabs on it till it’s completed at which time I archive it. I agree with you on the single folder archive approach and relying on a search tool like Copernic. Simply elegant right?
Since I do tech support, most of what I get is really not intended for me to keep or respond to. I have a few folders to store email in. Mostly, I delete everything in my inbox the next day. If I need to find it, I just search my deleted mail. I sometimes go through and delete some of the junk in the deleted mail, just to keep the size down. When I’ve worked here for a full year, I may archive some of the older stuff out of deleted mail. This approach has worked well in two call centers, so I’m sticking with it. In my personal mail, using gmail, I try to just archive the things I want to keep. Searches are very powerful, especially if you limit the number of places you keep things in.
This is great. What do you think of the GTD software program? I am trying to decide whether its worth it or not. Thank for any input!
@Dave:
Hi Dave, it’s good to see you on my GTD blog!
You’ll have to be a little bit more specific, which of the many GTD programs are you refering to? I’ll be more than happy to help you on your way with GTD. GTD itself is definitely worth it, no matter what tools or software you are using.
Sorry - I didn’t realize there were more than one - I was referring to the Outlook plug in.
Now I will look into what else is out here as well!
Thanks!
Dave
[…] Evolution of my e-mail setup – an overview of how this e-mail system went from chaos to lean and mean. […]
Interesting article, and funny how your stages closely resemble mine
My current setup is similar although a bit more complicated. I always use an email client with capability for virtual folders (also called “search folders”, “smart folders”, “saved searches”, etc.). I currently use Evolution in Linux and Mail.app in the Mac. My “inbox” is a virtual folder called @Unread, in which only unread messages appear. Once I read it, it disappears automatically from @Unread. If it’s something that requires action, I flag it, which makes it appear in my @Action virtual folder, where only flagged messages appear. Finally, in Evolution I have defined several labels, one of which is called “Reference”, and I have a virtual folder filtering on that label for emails that contain information to which I may have to refer later. Physically, almost all emails stay in the Inbox, but I never look at it, so it works as an archival place.
Interesting article. I guess, I was moving to Enlightenment but now I think I should directly skip to “GTD - lean and mean”
… Thanks for that. One question I have in general is how do you guys handle mailing lists? Most of my unread mails are from mailing lists and while they reside in their own folders, I tend to skip them altogether. This is because I see something like 900 unread and move on!!! Guess spring cleaning is required
I have to separate my mail into months because of the volume. But I also combine sent and received into the same folder. that way I can view the thread including my response. Outlook used to only support .pst files up to 2Gb I keep my .pst files less than 1Gb by separating into months.
Anything I need to keep for instant reference I use a Backup folder. Everything else is completed when received.
I only check email a couple of times per day. First thing at work and in the afternoon. My staff has been informed that they should not send email to the clients outside of working hours.
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