how many unread emails you usually got?

28k in personal inbox, 193k (!) in work - mostly old error messages. 0 unread in both. Re: moving into folders, an effective search beats any kind of taxonomy.

Those of you cleaning out your inboxes daily, do you also move corresponding sent emails to folders as well so all the correspondence related to that topic/project are together?

lol extremely good question

“sent box zero” would be deeply impressive and of course disturbing

once it gets to like 100 unread I delete (without reading) most of them, read any that were important. I hate unread emails and sometimes I miss important shit.

at work I'm always at 0 unread because I don't get enough in a day to where I can't catch up. when I was a project manager it was typically 100 unread

lol extremely good question

“sent box zero” would be deeply impressive and of course disturbing

― Tracer Hand, Friday, May 20, 2022 9:23 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, I use my sent mail more than my inbox on some level. My “system” so to speak:

1. Send email.
2. Set calendar reminder to follow up on response needed (markups I’ve sent, signatures I need, responses not received, etc.).
3. When calendar pops up, find original sent email, respond to all and follow up.
4. Lather, rinse, repeat until task is completed.

i like this

that's a pretty good system, PBKR. but have you tried this?

1. stare at the inbox
2. inbox counter goes up
3. set timer.
3. read email, or at least click on it to make the counter go back to 0
4. stop timer.
5. log timer results in "precisionliving.xls", learn lessons, repeat

1. stare at inbox
2. Goto line 1.

Re: moving into folders, an effective search beats any kind of taxonomy.

― buffalo tomozzarella (ledge), Friday, May 20, 2022 3:36 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is true and it's why i leave everything in inbox in gmail. but when i started working in the mid-00s and had to use outlook, "effective search" was not a strong suit.

I have about 150 unread, almost all from the same small group of frequent spammers. A few companies refuse to remove me from their mailing lists.

Also, why don't businesses understand how email works by now? I bought a set of tires from one place and now I get weekly emails about their big sale that week on tires. Hey guys, I just bought four, I'm not going to need another set for another 5 years, stop sending me weekly emails.

Re: moving into folders, an effective search beats any kind of taxonomy.

― buffalo tomozzarella (ledge), Friday, May 20, 2022 12:36 AM (eight hours ago)

depends on if you know what you are searching for? ... idk, this is actually a really interesting philosophical question tbh

i’m not going to pretend my way is any good but your way requires eventually moving every email that comes into your inbox to…. somewhere…. whereas i don’t do that at all so no it’s not the same amount of work

― Tracer Hand, Friday, May 20, 2022 3:08 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

eh, i guess i'm comparing the hassle of re-marking "unprocessed" emails as unread (a key press) with the hassle of removing processed emails from the inbox. they're both a keystroke (unless you're the kind of graybeard/sicko who files emails into specific folders).

you're right that you have to do the archive keystroke more if you remove stuff from the inbox than the mark unread keystroke if you do that.

but if you use gmail, you're presumably also using the keyboard to change to the next email. there's a key to do that, but there's a key to do that _and_ archive the current email. so if you're changing to the next email anyway, it's no extra work.

can i just say, this is one of my favorite topics and i'm having a lovely time.

in gmail hit ] to remove the current email from the inbox and switch to the next email. [ does the same but switches to the previous email. it's good.

unless you're the kind of graybeard/sicko who files emails into specific folders

i have maybe a few dozen gray hairs, and no beard ... I guess I'm a sicko? But, seriously, I think some of this is related to the fact that the language and systems (e.g. the term "folder") are semantically connected to physical organizational systems. I was putting documents in actual manila folders before I had email, and filed emails into specific folders. It's a cognitive task that I associate with organizing things, having all the things in their proper places, and knowing where those are. ... Metaphorically, the non-foldered emails feel like stacks of paper all over the place.

I could tell you stories about the guy I worked for in the early-00s who would print out emails and news articles and keep them in folders. He never threw anything away and his filing system was just these very general topics like “insurance captives” so he ended up with nearly two dozen stacks of paper 1-3 feet tall around his giant office. It was like a kid building a fort out of paper no one was ever going to read. And he viewed himself as an environmentalist, but he was just a boomer.

what is an insurance captive?

xp - I don't know if he still does this, but this local legendary punk dude who has a record label wouldn't read email, so he would have his employees print out emails that were sent to him and then fax them to him.

An insurance captive is an insurance company created by some larger companies that only insures the company that created it. I haven’t dealt with them in a long time (and not much at that) but they had a lot of tax advantages and allow the company to keep any underwriting profits instead of having them go out the door to a third party insurer.

Can also be used to self insure large SIRs/deductible and such.

that's super interesting to me, actually.

i wouldn't necessarily call morrissey a punk dude

lol, wrong dude

do you all read emails sequentially? (moreso for business than personal).

I don't use a threaded view in Outlook, but if I get an email that's part of a thread, I just read the most recent and then read all of the previous ones there, so I know what the latest is and the history of discussion.

but I do know a lot of people who start at the bottom and work their way up, so they might respond to an early email in a thread that has since been contradicted later. like, maybe a thread says "can you send me a mockup of your latest presentation", and 5 emails in someone says "actually, I'd like to hold off doing that until further internal review", but the person sees the old email first and sends the presentation before they see that later they were asked not to.

idk if i'm the weird one or not, i always assume people read the older messages first even though I don't.

If I've been on vacation, then yeah I go reverse chronological sometimes. I'll also read ILX threads from the bottom up. :)

well, yeah.

Although it seems like bottom up has a different meaning in both cases but maybe that's what you intended.

I love reading ILX threads from bottom up, feels like watching a prequel to a horror film

RIght. Often there is a Natives Are Restless/Dr. Livingston I Presume moment when one is close enough to the headwaters of the thread and detects the scent of an OLDE ILXXE Troll like C-man in the wind.

^helluva description there

And then the drums stop, and it's very, very bad because...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKyJou39Kks

^6:15

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

good spread

the moderately responsible middle is the least represented! good job ILX!

Has nothing to do with responsibility

I will die on this hill with my unorganized tens of thousands of unread emails

If they were letters, they would be a literal hill to die on, and lo, we would think you were mad. I salute you.

I save all my important letters fwiw

returned to work for the first time since 6/27, and...only had 130 unread emails! mind boggled, that's....really not that many! - in my previous role, that woulda been 1,000 - 2,000 at least.

and yet still, I can't begin working until all of them are read, even if I flag them as important for later. or it'll drive me nuts.