Gmail lifehackery

[TalkieToaster]

This post is just sharing some of the progress I've made this week in
wrangling my info-overload into submission. (Inspired by 43folders
video interviews with Google staff no less!)

This week I configured Gmail to check my work email account via POP.
In my job as a Computer tech, I am subscribed to mandatory email
list(s) that spew new Job Tickets and every comment appended to each.
In theory, having all eyes on all problems means our varied skills are
applied simultaneously (great idea if you ask me) but in reality its a
lot of email!

By creating a number of Gmail filters / labels, I managed to distill
all of the inputs into a priority "stream" that I can quickly review
whilst working at customers premises (on their PCs too!), thus staying
on top of the day's comms.
This "stream" includes only emails / conversations (its Gmail now!)
that: contain my name in the body; or have sent directly/only to me.
Thanks to our Ticketing email format, this covers all bases.

All of the other less-priority emails still get some love throughout
the day at less regular intervals.

Now I'm informed, in-touch, feeling productive (happy)!

Does anyone else use Gmail like this (or another, better way? - I felt
that GTD was not the right method here, and I use our Ticketing system
for Project mgmt)

By the way...

I've dabbled with some of the Greasemonkey Scripts hosted at
http://blog.persistent.info/2005/12/greasemonkey-christmas.html - the
label colours are great!

Rgds

Alex

[Dennis During]

Alex:

This is only minimally responsive to your explicit questions, but supportive of your approach.

 

I think that GTD (DA's own implementation) works ideally only for executives.  It may work well also for many others, but often needs major modification.  *Most* of the *principles* of GTD translate fairly well to other situations.   You would have to dig deep and generalize those principles to come up with design principles for action management systems that covered all possible situations.  No one has yet done that, as far as I know.

 

Accordingly, you've got to customize for yourself.  Anyone who participates in a work environment where they are working from a designed workplace system would be foolish to duplicate it in their own GTD system.  GTD is useful for what doesn't fit in such systems.  What you have done seems like a great adjustment of your personal system.

 

I have recently started using Google's filters and labels to sort incoming e-mail.  Formerly I had used Outlook for the purpose, but my installation went bad (registry ?  unwillingness to install latest "optional" update), my CD had scratches, and MS Support said they couldn't get me a replacement in less than a month (It hasn't come yet.).  Now I am testing out OpenOffice and Gmail.  My next step is to reduce the volume of mail that comes to my Blackberry by normally disconnecting gamil from my BB and forwarding only some of my e-mail to the BB account usig gmail filter capability.  I can reconnect the base gmail to the BB when I am likely to have time to review "reading" e-mails when I am away from my desktop.

--
Dennis C. During