GTD & InboxZero systems of email management

Recently Merlin Mann of 43 Folders gave his “InboxZero” presentation at a Google tech talk. InboxZero is Merlin’s updated take on applying David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” productivity methods to email management. (video of the talk below)

If you’ve never read Getting Things Done (also know as GTD), I’d highly recommend it. It’s a short read and most of the information is common sense but it reaffirms some of the productivity processes that you might already be doing, while giving you ideas about how to improve others.

I’ve been using a hybrid of ideas from GTD and Merlin’s InboxZero for quite some time now to deal with the insane amount of email I receive every week. One of the frustrations I have heard from people about GTD is that they understand the concepts, but are unsure of the actual action flow that one would use. Though, it’s a personal preference how to apply the GTD concepts to managing your email inbox down to zero, I thought I’d provide a run through of how my process works and maybe that’ll give someone an idea of where to start.

I use Mail.app as my client of choice, because it’s quick, easy to use and comes with OS X. On top of that I use 2 mail bundle add-ons. Mail Act-On and Mail Badger to accomplish sorting and reminder of tasks.

Setup

In my mail client, I have a folder called GTD. Under that, there are 5 folders: Archive, Defer, Delegate, Do & Respond. These represent sorting receptacles when I process my inbox.

I have a few Mail Act-On rules configured to help me quickly sort the email in my inbox when it is processed (see above image). With the rules in place, I can use the following key commands when sorting:

	^A = Move message to the “Archive” folder
	^D = Move message to the “Do” folder
	^F = Move message to the “Defer” folder
	^L = Move message to the “Delegate” folder
	^R = Move message to the “Respond” folder

Additionally I have two rules that color code messages so I can quickly identify if they are relevant to me or if they are part of the collective email noise that bombards my account daily. The first highlights the email in red if I am in the “To:” line (rule shown above), and the second highlights the email in orange if I am in the “CC:” line. I’ve found that 90% of things that I am not directly on the To: or CC: line are irrelevant to me, and I can quickly archive them.

I use Mail Badger to give me a reminder on the Mail.app dock icon. The number of messages in my inbox is the red circle and the number of messages in my Respond folder is the green circle.

Processing my inbox

I try to process my inbox 3 times a day: first thing in the morning, noon, and before I leave work. This is an ideal situation, but I’m not necessarily able to keep my email client closed for such long stretches of time.

When I do process my inbox I start at the top, filter through every email in order and decide what the next action is on the email. I break it down like so:

For the majority of e-mails it’s quite easy to decided where they should be sorted. If I am able to Do or Respond to an e-mail in less than 2 minutes, then I take care of it right then and there, anything longer is sorted. The Defer folder is the only tricky one; if you are going to place emails in this folder you need to be regiment about checking the folder daily so it doesn’t become the black abyss that your inbox used to be.

Get Things Done

Now that my mail is sorted I can handle tasks one at a time from the Do folder. I usually reserve an hour at the end of the day to plow through the responses folder in order to clean it out so I don’t get behind. This should provide you with enough information develop your own GTD system for dealing with email or have a look at Merlin’s InboxZero talk at Google:

Tags: archive, david allen, defer, delegate, do, email inbox, getting things done, gtd, inboxzero, merlin mann, productivity, respond