Comments on: Email Productivity Experiment – Update 3

By: Email Productivity Experiment - Update 4 | Getting Things Done GTD with Personal Development and Motivation for Success

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:45:24 +0000

[...] This is the fifth post in my mini series about email productivity. For those of you who missed the first four I have provided links to them below. Email Productivity Experiment Email Productivity Experiment – Update 1 Email Productivity Experiment – Update 2 Email Productivity Experiment – Update 3 [...]

By: Andrew Mason

Andrew Mason — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:10:52 +0000

@Jared

Enjoy the Zig videos and have a great weekend!

Andrew..

By: Jared Goralnick

Jared Goralnick — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:34:23 +0000

Thanks, Andrew, you’re too kind! I’m never really good at being patient. I see a problem and just want to throw in ideas! .

Now I’ve got to find some time for those Zig videos… Have a great day!

By: Andrew Mason

Andrew Mason — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:04:05 +0000

@Jared

Thanks Jared. I was not going to mention Awayfind until you did

I will get to trying the beta out and will obviously review it as well. It sounds like the secret sauce for what I am looking for, and I hope it is!

Thanks,

By: Andrew Mason

Andrew Mason — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:56:17 +0000

@Eli

Just looked into the Mail.app preferences and I can play a sound at the end of a rule. So I could perform a rule where I moved items and then only sounded a notification when the mail arrived from an individual or group.

All real good thinking points and I thank you for your contribution.

Thanks, and have a great day.

Andrew..

By: Jared Goralnick

Jared Goralnick — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:20:44 +0000

First of all, I think there’s nothing wrong with some flexibility in specific circumstances. You can even use IM or phone for those things. But if you want to rely on technology…

I agree with Eli’s solution. You could create a filter that either alerts you with a sound/popup or forwards certain messages to another account. It could be based on subject, content, sender etc. That’s the only really good way to use your own rules for urgency.

Since I’ve been using AwayFind (disclosure: my product), the sender gets to identify things as urgent. When there’s something important I get a text message on my cellphone or someone else at my office gets the (abbreviated) message routed to them (depending on the category).

Best of luck!

By: Eli

Eli — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:49:04 +0000

Just a thought. I haven’t had to check my e-mail frequently or infrequently due to productivity reasons. However your problem has intrigued me. Could you set your e-mail to check ever 5 min and have it alert you when only specific people e-mail you? That way you can still schedule an “e-mail break” on your schedule, but still reply timely to those people that are on a special list. I don’t know much about Mail.app, but it is fairly easy within Outlook. You can also have them moved to a certain folder under your inbox so you don’t even see the other e-mails unless you specifically change folders.