<<< Date Index >>>     <<< Thread Index >>>

Re: How to organize mail in folders?



On Fri, Jul 20, 2007 at 03:33:37PM +0200, Kai Grossjohann wrote:
> Michelle,
> 
> I think there is a misunderstanding.  I wanted to understand how other
> people process their email.  You are giving me pointers to programs but
> don't describe how you use them.
> 
> Here is a potential strategy for handling mail:
> 
>   - All incoming mail goes to inbox.
>   - I process all mails from inbox.
>   - Some messages I read, then delete right away.
>   - Other messages I read, then archive by project.
>     By project means that there is a folder for each project.
>   - Some messages I read, then respond to and archive (by project).
>   - Some messages I read, decide that I can't handle them right
>     away, so I put them in the todo folder.  Every morning I go
>     through my todo folder.
>   - Some messages (often those sent by me) are waiting for responses
>     from others.  I file those in the "pending" folder.  Every
>     morning I go through my "pending" folder to see whether a response
>     has arrived.
> 
> Some of the above steps could be automated.  The strategy does not
> handle mailing lists well.  But I hope it shows one possible response
> and makes it clear in what way your response differs from what I was
> expecting.
> 
The above strategy is a pretty good description of what I actually do.

The only difference in my case is that I use a procmail lookalike
(it's a perl sript) to sort incoming mail, basically into a mailbox
per mailing list and my main inbox.

Which parts of the above would you automate?  I can't really see what
can be automated except, possibly, the "archive by project".  My
archive folders don't really correspond to anything that could be
gleaned from the E-Mails (except, in some cases, the sender) so the
ones I save I just save manually.

-- 
Chris Green