Things you want to do, too

Something I did you might want to do, too: an extremely powerful GTD approach for using Apple Mail. For those that actually have a good way of keeping their next actions, mail should be only an inbox (as in: unprocessed, not: unfinished) and an archive. Strangely, it doesn’t act that way by default. But it’s really simple to do. I’ve devised a workflow for this within Apple Mail. Using it, you see only:

• All unread email
• All today’s email
• All flagged email

Scary, huh? All email that’s not one of these three, is a goner (visually, at least).
Now here’s the workflow. A new email comes in. You read it. Then, you either

• take it as FYI and decide you have no action to take,
• reply to it immediately,
• make it into a ‘next action’ on your todo-list, outside of apple mail, or,
• if you can’t decide on an action, you can postpone judgement by flagging the email (ctrl-command-L)

Note that all of these make the email ‘read’, automatically making it disappear from view unless you flag it.

You still get email that’s not from today in your inbox, but only because you haven’t figured out what to do with it yet. This list is much shorter than the thousands of emails that would otherwise pile up. And, you’ll clean it up more often because you know it’s all stuf that might need action sooner rather than later.
For me, this setup means two things

• An unbelievably clean inbox, even with the obscene amount of emails I get during work, but even more important,
• A huge drive and focus on getting emails into actionable items, resulting in more stuff getting done.

So, you ask, how do I make this miracle happen in Apple Mail? We’ll use Smart Folders. And since we need to both ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ filtering, we use an inbetween-box. Here goes: first, setup a smart folder called ‘Focused’, like this:

This is just an inbetween-stage, so you won’t directly use this smart folder. Now setup a new smart folder, like this:

Voila! Now click ‘CleanView’ to start living your better, shinier, more attractive you.

Bonus: this workflow doesn’t actually modify your email or throw anything away (you can always view your actual, nasty, big, original inbox), yet it’s perfectly searchable using spotlight.
Now here’s some else to do, too: Drink ‘tinto de verano’. Get a good Spanish wine (a young, full Rioja), and a bottle of Las Caseras, and throw em in the fridge. Once they’re cold, get them out, mix them (to preference: half/half is not unusual) in a wine glass, throw in a slice of lemon, and drink up. Summer perfection.