I love this article. I've been obsessing about email work flow for a long time.

I use the sort-by-subject first until I've slain those groupings, then I'll sort by sender and start from the bottom of the list and start replying. I find that one of the hardest parts of replying is having to constantly switch my voice depending on who I'm talking to. When I group by sender, I've minimized these switches of email voice.

Another tool I've adapted is a single button that puts the current piece of mail away into a folder labeled with the sender's name. I do it with a macro in Outlook, and I used to use manual filters in Eudora for the same thing. I miss Eudora :( I hope its move to Thunderbird regains manual filters.

I wrote up the Outlook macro here:

http://www.declan.net/2007/11/11/managing-email-in-outlook/

Of course, I've ended up with thousands of folders, but it really helped me find things. I am considering changing from being a "filer" to a "piler" since moving to gmail. The search capabilities make putting things in separate folders less necessary. In fact, even with Outlook, the desktop indexer is pretty fast.

D

Should "have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too" be "eat-your-cake-and-have-it-too" ?

It is easy to have it, then eat it. The paradox is in eating it then expecting to still have it.

Yes, I'm an English Major.

:)

D