EMAIL = LIFE ENGINE

[Derek]

Who's using email to primarily manage their task lists. Who needs any
other stinkin' apps!

[Derek]

Here's a breakdown of my contextual task list:

# -ATHOME
# -ATSCHOOL (4)
# -CALLS (12)
# -EMAILS
# -ERRANDS (2)
# -ONLINE (14)
# -PAPERS
# -PENDING (6)
# -PROJECTindex (5)
# -READING (2)
# -REFERENCE (5)
# -WAITING... (3)
# -WANTS (4)
# -prBROKENANGEL
# -prGENEALOGY
# -prMEIER
# -prSOCKBOY
# -prTRAFFIC
# -zTICKLE
# 1.ARCHIVE_04
# 1.Completed Tasks (110)

[Clint Laskowski]

so, what do you do? send tasks as messages to yourself? how does this
work?

[Derek]

I send an email to myself and don't open it so it is always an unread
item (this helps because when i look at my mail thru my phone and oin
the web, the number of items are given netxt to the foilder name). Whe
something comes into my inbox, I immediately delegate (forward), task
mysellf or delete. For items I task myself and are a project, I create
a project index item, think of a next action and put that action into
the correct context list or on my calendar. Any details that i need to
add to an action go into the email and i resend it to myself and resort
it (deleting the onlder unmodified email).

When I am done with an action, i move it to my comepleted tasks folder
and think of a new action if it is part of a longer project.

This way, all i need is the app that is the most important anyway,
email. Phone companies and portal know this, so email will be the thing
best ported to my phone or PDA (I use a hipster PDA... pen and paper).
Piece of cake. Why get crazy fetishizing over all the doodads. Just doo
it.

[Derek]

Oh, I forgot... I have set up a nickname (TODO) for myself so i can
easily send emails to myself and I have also played around with filters
to get these emails to go directly into my context list. unfortunately
I have had trouble with that because spam might use my keyword and i'll
end up finding "donkey girl calls the shots!" spam in my task list
("calls" being the filter word). I think email is a great place to
start. These other task list programs need email anyway, why beat
around the bush.

[David Kearford]

Instead of sending email to your `TODO` alias (and filtering it), you
might want to look into using "plus addressing" (also known as
"subaddressing") to deliver the email directly to a specific
folder/mailbox.

For example, messages sent to `user...@example.com` _should_ be
delivered directly into `user`s `todo` mailbox.

I'm not sure whether this is an IMAP, MTA, or postfix feature so your
mileage may vary depending upon the setup of your mail server. There's
a wealth of information and links about it in Nancy McGough's
[Procmail Quick Start][1].

Btw, you can also use it with [Gmail labels][2] (again, Nancy McGough).

[1]: http://www.ii.com/internet/robots/procmail/qs/#forwarding
[2]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.mail.procmail/11945

-- David

[Derek]

Unless Yahoo is running procmail, I am outta luck, but your suggestion
is exactly the tpye of thing I am looking for: how to hack email to fit
with my life. It is the ultimate web based app and i firmly believe, as
does Google, it will be the center of our lives. And, if hacking email
is going to be easier in GMail, I will get ready for the migration from
Yahoo now. Thank you VERY VERY much for the suggestion even though it
won't work for me just yet.

-Derek

[Jeff Sherwood]

Derek, if you are using Yahoo mail, couldn't you just set up a filter
to transfer mail to specific folders based on a string contained in
the subject line or something? For example if the subject line
contained the string '**TODO**' the filter would be set up to transfer
the email to the TODO folder.

[David Kearford]

It looks like Yahoo do support subaddressing - although they refer to
it as "AddressGuard" (and it uses a hyphen/minus rather than a plus
symbol to denote the folder). However, as far as I can tell, you have
to be a Yahoo! Mail Plus customer to use the feature.

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:09:11 -0700, Derek <heyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

-- David

[Derek]

Thanks, david! that really did the trick. i am up and jamming with
sending email directly to a nickname that is assigned to a subaddressed
email address. Goes right into the folder and there is no sorting. Very
cool. Now, i have to think some other cool way to use this to make my
life better.