Productivity tip #1 - Waiting For e-mail folder
Time to share some of the things I’ve implemented in my daily life to make it run more smoothly!
There’s this book by David Allen that’s called Getting Things Done, which introduces a system that takes care of reminding and storing all your todo and projects. It’s awesome, and I’ve only managed to implement some pieces of the system, since I’m pretty lazy 
But here is a thing I’ve used for a couple of years now:
Create a @Waiting_For mailbox in your mail reader! Whenever you send an email to someone to which you want a reply, store a copy of that mail in this folder, that way you have a placeholder that will remind you that you’re waiting for a reply from someone. I store only project related things here, not private mail that is used only for connecting with others.
It works wonders for me! I go through the mailbox at irregular intervals and see what it is I’m still waiting for, and if sufficient time has elapsed, I send a reminder. It’s also a way to keep a placeholder for a project I’m currently doing, to remind me there are things to be done on it.
Currently my waiting-for contains 12 emails on such variety of projects as ‘DVD-burner to the dojo computer’, ‘Creating a link on the main page of the budo club for the party committe’ and ‘Having another person get ahold of a word document with Aikido’s beginners book’.
It took a couple of months before I realised how useful the mailbox was, and now I can’t live without it. I recommend to try it out, if you don’t have a similar system already, and report back how it works for you!
Technorati Tags: Getting Things Done, Productivity, Email
Caroline wrote,
I have a similar system…but I simply use the star-feature in Gmail when I need something like this. Mostly I try to, ehrm, challenge my memory, though.
July 25th 2006 at 19:31 (7:31 pm) — Using
Firefox 1.5.0.4 on 
Windows XP
Mika Perälä wrote,
Oooh, star feature! I don’t use Gmail myself, what does the star do?
Hehe, I’ve challenged my memory and lost many times!
July 25th 2006 at 23:27 (11:27 pm) — Using
Firefox 1.5.0.4 on 
Windows XP
Caroline wrote,
Hehe. The star feature simply lets you mark certain e-mails with a little star so that they are easier to find. They stay in the inbox, but can also be find in the star-category.
July 26th 2006 at 09:02 (9:02 am) — Using
Firefox 1.5.0.4 on 
Windows XP
Fredrik Heintz wrote,
Ett snarlikt tips är att se din inbox som din todo-lista och se till att bara brev som inte är hanterade finns där. Så fort du har hanterat brevet på lämpligt sätt (t.ex. genom GTD-principen) flyttar du det från inboxen. Ditt tips funkar fortfarande utmärkt för att hantera uteblivna svar
En tanke som slog mig nu är att man kanske skulle skapa en katalog för varje månad och flytta brev som man inte behöver hantera förrän senare till lämplig katalog.
August 6th 2006 at 13:13 (1:13 pm) — Using
Opera 9.00 on 
Solaris
Mika Perälä wrote,
Tack för tipset Fredrik
Jag gillar dock att ha en tom inbox, så jag för över alla brev till ett ToDo-system á la GTD när jag processat dem.
Att skapa kataloger för varje månad är ingen dum idé. I GTD så använder man sig av monthly folders där man lägger saker man ska processa vissa dagar en viss månad. Så kan man alltid se till att ha de rätta prylarna i rätt tid. Ska fundra på det!
August 7th 2006 at 03:18 (3:18 am) — Using
Firefox 1.5.0.6 on 
Windows XP