It would have been great to have you in my workshop – I always appreciate a fellow productivity buff’s feedback.

I like how you’ve split the problem into two parts – setup and maintenance. My take on your points:

o Filters: The only use I recommend is the ones you list: predictable non-actionable messages.

o 10 minutes on most urgent messages: This is slippery. Yes, given the speed of the day, “checking” for urgent makes sense. The risk is that other non-urgent gets missed. Combine the former with daily emptying and I’d be happy

o Unsubscribe from mailing lists…: Definitely. An nice alternative is to move them into RSS. Lots of throwaway email tools out there that have RSS feeds for accounts.

o Tagging actionable messages with tags…: I’ll differ with you on this. Using the inbox for tracking action is risky. In my workshop we talk about what the email inbox is for, and it takes people a while to remember… for collecting unread mail! Mixing it with other uses (action, reading, delegated work, …) is inefficient, and there are better tools for each use. My 2c.

o Tag messages for retrieval: Alternatively you can use folders. I recommend creating one for each project you have going. I hadn’t thought about using tags for this. I use them because my account is in Gmail, which *only* supports tags. Works fine, though it’s a problem managing many tags, tags can’t be hierarchical, etc. Thanks for the nice idea.

o Put off less urgent responses: This is essentially the Defer “D” (of the 5Ds) to use when processing incoming. The point is to decide action, create a reminder *outside* of email, and delete or archive the message. In GTD this involves adding “Reply to __’s email” to your Actions list. To find the original when the time comes to respond, use an “Action Support” tag/folder.

o Write a short “get back to you soon” note: This is a great practice for those messages that will take more time or brainpower than you have when first processing the message. It’s in the general category of think about who is impacted by a decision, in this case the decision to defer and reply later. Nice one, Crystal.

Thanks for the stimulating post. Cheers!