How do you organize your email conversations?
-
I have emails from clients that span many topics and include a variety of important information. When working with a new client, there's a lot of new info, a lot of questions, one thing leads to another, etc. Do you use any technology (from a paperpad to a Cray) to help organize the threads? Come to think of it, if the conversations could be organized as forum threads, that would be great! I'm thinkin of using MindManager, but wondered what folks do, especially for new clients/work/information. Marc
I've tried loads of ways in the past - I use Outlook and finally settled on simple Archive PST's for each year with a folder in it for each month - this makes it dead easy to archive (just sort by date and drag the emails in) - then I index the whole lot with X1 - my actual Outlook profile only opens the current inbox stuff and X1 deals with finding anything else
-
I have emails from clients that span many topics and include a variety of important information. When working with a new client, there's a lot of new info, a lot of questions, one thing leads to another, etc. Do you use any technology (from a paperpad to a Cray) to help organize the threads? Come to think of it, if the conversations could be organized as forum threads, that would be great! I'm thinkin of using MindManager, but wondered what folks do, especially for new clients/work/information. Marc
About once every six monthe, with copious swearing.
-
Check out ClearContext[^]. It requires Outlook but for me it's been a truly marvelous product that I'm very satisfied with.
What I am up to: ReadyToGiveUp(Not!)[^] What friends are up to:SQLServerCentral[^]
I enjoyed seeing this thread, because I recently struggled with this question and polled various people in my office on their email organization technique. Nothing was satisfying or logical. I used to just delete everything I didn't want and leave unfinished items in my inbox, but that wasn't working, especially when you need to CYA. My current system which I'm still not thrilled with is to have a few folders for large projects, and I organize the rest in archives by month sent/received. Using Outlook I can make a "power search" that searches all my folders for the current year. Prompted by an earlier thread, I might try making a few more saved searches that are filtered on specific words. Alan
-
I have emails from clients that span many topics and include a variety of important information. When working with a new client, there's a lot of new info, a lot of questions, one thing leads to another, etc. Do you use any technology (from a paperpad to a Cray) to help organize the threads? Come to think of it, if the conversations could be organized as forum threads, that would be great! I'm thinkin of using MindManager, but wondered what folks do, especially for new clients/work/information. Marc
I don't! If someone seems to be starting a conversation in email, I email them to tell them to call me if they want to talk. After that, I ignore any emails. Nothing irritates me more than replying to an email, turning around to do work in some other area, getting an email back, having to reply, turning around to do work, etc. :mad: Once or twice is OK, otherwise use the phone! Tony
-
I place them all in the Deleted Folder. That way I feel like I actually made some progress during the day... :sigh: :) Cheers. David
I find an automatic forwarding rule that removes any incoming email straight to the bin highly productive... Dominic.
-
I have emails from clients that span many topics and include a variety of important information. When working with a new client, there's a lot of new info, a lot of questions, one thing leads to another, etc. Do you use any technology (from a paperpad to a Cray) to help organize the threads? Come to think of it, if the conversations could be organized as forum threads, that would be great! I'm thinkin of using MindManager, but wondered what folks do, especially for new clients/work/information. Marc
In years past I tried to adhere to a topical folder hierarchy, moving both receieved and sent messages to the correct folder. Wound up with a lot of folders, and this was lot of extra work. Categorization efforts like this are always imperfect, sometimes copied same msg to multiple folders to increase odds of me finding it in future. But for last 2 yrs now I only have Inbox, "Sent Mail" and Archive folders. Under Archive I have a folder for each preceeding year. The only organization I do is move old msgs(from prior years) to Archive--I do this about once a month or so, only takes a minute or two. What makes this work significantly better than my old approach is Copernic Desktop Search. Finds any old msg instantly, much better than search that's built-in to the email tools, and vastly better than trying to find old msgs based on where I'd put them in a folder hierarchy. Always looking for a better way to do things, but I'm pretty sure this is it as far as email. Mike Good
-
I have emails from clients that span many topics and include a variety of important information. When working with a new client, there's a lot of new info, a lot of questions, one thing leads to another, etc. Do you use any technology (from a paperpad to a Cray) to help organize the threads? Come to think of it, if the conversations could be organized as forum threads, that would be great! I'm thinkin of using MindManager, but wondered what folks do, especially for new clients/work/information. Marc
I have one word for you: LookOut (http://www.majorgeeks.com/Lookout\_d4808.html). Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.
-
i have a folder called "Stuff" that holds anything that i don't want deleted. spending time on organization is a waste, if you've got a fast enough Find feature.
image processing toolkits | batch image processing | blogging
-
I have emails from clients that span many topics and include a variety of important information. When working with a new client, there's a lot of new info, a lot of questions, one thing leads to another, etc. Do you use any technology (from a paperpad to a Cray) to help organize the threads? Come to think of it, if the conversations could be organized as forum threads, that would be great! I'm thinkin of using MindManager, but wondered what folks do, especially for new clients/work/information. Marc
I am still evaluating a EverNote. I copy the email and paste it into an appropriate EverNote database, be it work related, social ,etc. Then I adjust the time-date to match the email's. Little bit of work- haven't figured how to automate it.... yet! :) BTW, I am using the free version for my tests.
-
I have emails from clients that span many topics and include a variety of important information. When working with a new client, there's a lot of new info, a lot of questions, one thing leads to another, etc. Do you use any technology (from a paperpad to a Cray) to help organize the threads? Come to think of it, if the conversations could be organized as forum threads, that would be great! I'm thinkin of using MindManager, but wondered what folks do, especially for new clients/work/information. Marc
Information is a hard thing to organize. How you do it depends a great deal on the information you are dealing with. I use a hybrid of folders and catch all. There are particular projects that I am working on, so I create a folder for each project. There are also things like Coffee orders and reminders (I order the Coffee for my office), that get their own folder. In addition I have a In Progress folder for stuff that I am looking at (same a design review or some HR paperwork), but not part of a project. My Inbox remains relatively empty at the end of each day. If it is something I need to remember, work items go into our wiki and personal items go into my backpack account. When all else fails Google desktop search reminds me where I put it.
Tanks for your support
Pat O
Blog_ _ _
/*\== /*\== /*\==
<ooo> <ooo> <ooo> -
I find an automatic forwarding rule that removes any incoming email straight to the bin highly productive... Dominic.