Section 10.1. Managing Your Email


10.1. Managing Your Email

Your email reader is not the most effective time-management tool. Anyone who has tried to use his inbox as his to do list quickly discovers this. It works great for a day or two, then suddenly you get a flood of emails, and it all goes to hell in a handbasket. Messages are mixed with to do items, and there is no way to prioritize or keep track of things.

Therefore, my recommendation is to keep your inbox clean.

To keep your inbox clean, you need to have a plan for what you're going to do with every email message you receive. Each possibility has to end with "delete the message," or your inbox will start to fill up. In fact, if you don't delete it soon, you'll be stuck going back over old messages to figure out what to do with them. That means you'll read each email message twice (maybe more) before acting on itnot very efficient.

When dealing with interruptions in Chapter 2, we used a system called delegate, record, do. For dealing with email, we have a few more options:

  • Filter

  • Delete unread

  • Read and...

    • Delete

    • File

    • Reply, then delete

    • Delegate or forward, then delete

  • Do now, then delete

I know to an experienced email user like you these points seem obvious and self-explanatory, but indulge me. You might know how to manage email, but are you really doing it? The following sections go into more detail and include tips I've picked up along the way.

10.1.1. Filter

Email filters are a big part of my email management. By having email automatically filtered based on content, subject, or whom the email is from, I can set up routines.

The bulk of my email comes from email lists that I subscribe to. I create a folder for each mailing list I'm on and set up automatic filters to file messages from each mailing list to their appropriate folder.

I group the folders into two parent folders or groups. The first group is the folders (mailing lists) I read every day. To me, this is like reading the daily newspaper. I try to keep this group smallsmall enough that I can read all the messages that accumulate each day in 15 minutes.

The other group of folders is for my less-important mailing lists. For these, if I haven't gotten around to reading the folder by Friday, I empty the entire folder without reading any of the contents. This prevents me from accumulating megabytes of outdated messages. I delete with confidence: if it was really important, I would have seen it elsewhere, too.

I also have one unofficial group of mailing lists. These are the lists that receive messages so rarely that it doesn't make sense to set up a filter for them. They might as well go to my inbox directly. An example of this is the list that announces new releases of the Unix sendmail program. The announcements are rare enough that it's OK to let them go to my inbox, and setting up a filter would be more work than it is worth. Managing a lot of usually empty folders would be a pain.

I have another rule about email lists. Once a month I evaluate the lists I'm subscribed to and unsubscribe from one of them. This is a routine (see Chapter 6) that I schedule for the first of each month. Some months this is easy: I've joined a list that turned out not to be very useful. Other months it's not so easy, but I do it anyway. Otherwise, I'm going to end up on every email list on the planet. This is similar to what some people do to keep their closets organized: when they buy new clothes, they get rid of an equal number of old clothes. Here's a mantra for you:

If you aren't sure if an email list is useful, it isn't.

10.1.2. Delete Unread

The next category of email messages are the ones that I can delete without reading . These are usually maintenance announcements from the building supervisor, spam, or other "blast" email that I know has little relevance to my life.

When I was at Bell Labs, I would often receive a printed announcement in my office mailbox telling me that construction would be blocking a particular entrance. I would also receive email about this, often multiple times. Of course, if I was driving anywhere near that entrance, I would see tons of construction and signs notifying me to turn back. Eventually, I realized that unless the message mentioned something that affected computers (power, cooling, etc.), I could delete those messages without reading them.

10.1.3. Read and...

Email that we read has to be processed somehow. My goal is to touch each email only once. By touch, I mean deal with it and send it to its final resting place. If I don't have time to read a message, I let it sit unread. I've found that when I choose to leave a partially read email in my mailbox to finish reading later, I always end up reading the whole thing again. Thus, I'm reading at least part of it twice, which isn't very efficient. So, I've created a rule for myself: if I start to read a message, I have to finish it and then act upon it using one of the methods listed here.

Server-Side Email Filtering

I prefer to do my email filtering on the server side. That usually requires using an IMAP-based system or prohibits the use of a POP-based system. While most email clients nowadays will filter messages as they arrive, filtering them on the server has some significant benefits.

First of all, I use a variety of email clients on many different machines. I can't be expected to keep the filters in sync on all of the machines. IMAP handles that well.

Second, the filters I can do on a server are done at arrival time, not when I run the client. In other words, the filters trigger even when I'm not around or I don't have my email client running. That means I can construct filters that do things such as send a copy to your pager or cell phone or run a command to process the message.

At one company I worked for, the secretaries would email everyone in the entire building when there was leftover food after a sales presentation. I would often miss these announcements because I was in the machine room. That was, of course, until I set up server-side filtering . Any email with a subject line containing "lunch" or "food" would be copied to my pager (this was before cell phones). Often, I would get to the food before anyone else.

Now I also receive copies on my cell phone that mention lunch, food, dinner, the word "urgent," or anything that comes from my boss, my boss's boss, my significant other, and a few other important people. It not only helps me focus (I'm not checking my email all the time), but it helps me not miss the really important emails.

If your email server permits you to reach a Unix/Linux command line, there is a good chance you can use procmail (http://www.procmail.org) for your server-side filtering. I'm such a fan of procmail that I often tell people, "If you aren't using procmail, you're working too hard."

Some IMAP4-based email servers have server-side filtering using something called Sieve. Made popular with the Cyrus IMAP server for Unix/Linux, Sieve is an open standard for server-side filtering. That means that any client can be used to update the filters on any server that conforms to IETF RFC 3028 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3028.txt). The home page for Sieve is http://www.cyrusoft.com/sieve/.


10.1.3.1. Delete

We all have messages that we can read and delete right away. These are the messages that require no action from us. Items that I'm cced on often fall into this category, as do emails that just acknowledge that someone received an email that I sent.

I receive a lot of automated messages from various systems. Request Tracker from Best Practical bccs me on any changes to requests in certain categories or queues. This lets me keep tabs on what's going on. Unless I need to chime in, I can read and delete these.

10.1.3.2. File

I try not to file a lot of email. I know many people who file every message they receive. They have 500 folders and spend a few minutes deciding the perfect folder for each message. I prefer, "When in doubt, throw it out." If I discover that I need that information a few days later, I can find it in my trash folder. If I need it much later, I can go to the original source or find some poor fool who spends his time meticulously filing every message he receives.

Some people set up a filter to save a copy of every incoming email message (excluding those from mailing lists) to an archive folder. Then they are confident that they can delete any message without fretting. If they later discover that they shouldn't have deleted something, they can go to the archive. I believe that as disk space becomes cheaper, this will become more popular. Someday email will include special features to handle this better.

There are legal implications to archiving all email. Check your corporate email retention policy.


The email that I do save goes into one of two folders: Save and Receipts. If it is something documenting a financial exchange, I put it in the Receipts folder. Otherwise, it goes in my Save folder. I used to have a million little folders, one for every occasion. It turns out that scrolling through all those folders was more time than it was worth. If I need it, it's in Save or Receipts.

10.1.3.3. Reply, then delete

Email that requires a reply should get a reply right away so that people aren't kept waiting.

The Feathers Email Folder

Besides Save and Receipts, I have one other folder called Feathers.

When someone compliments me, it is a "feather in my cap." Therefore, any time I get a thank-you email or anything complimentary, I move the message to this folder. When I'm having a depressing day, I flip though these messages to cheer myself up.

This folder is also useful when I have to write my yearly performance review.


The problem is that sometimes the reply will require a lot of work, and I won't have time for it right then. In that case, I put the email into my to do list management system so that it won't be lost, but I can still delete it from my inbox.

For example, my reply is usually, "I've added this to the to do list. I'll get back to you with a full answer by [insert date]." I then forward the email to our request-tracking system.

With a system like RT from Best Practical (http://bestpractical.com), you can do this in one step. Simply forward the entire message (attachments and all) to the person and bcc the email address that creates new RT tickets. Add a message to the top saying, "Hi! I got your message. I should get back to you by [insert date] with an answer."

No muss, no fuss.

Sometimes it's more appropriate to record the request in your organizer and send email to the person when you expect to have an answer.

Either way, the message is recorded and no longer needs to be in your inbox.

(If you don't have a request-tracking system, I highly recommend you make it a top priority to install one. Some of the best ones are free, including the aforementioned RT.)

I used to think it was polite to reply to every email I received. Polite? I thought it was my duty! Now I actually reply to very little email. If someone sent me a joke, I don't reply with, "Thanks, it was hilarious" or the more annoying, "Gosh, I've been on that interweb since 1987 and I've seen that a million times." I just delete it and move on.

Unless, of course, the email asks for a specific reply. Then I forward it back to the person with a quick answer. By including the entire message, I don't have to explain context. Life is too short to write long memos.

10.1.3.4. Delegate or forward, then delete

Some email requires delegating a task to someone else. I always cc the person who made the request so she knows who it has been delegated to. Sometimes I create a to do item in my organizer to follow up on the item on a particular day, which helps me stay in the loop and verify that the task wasn't dropped.

Sometimes forwarded emailmessages to my boss or my team to keep them updateddoesn't require follow up. I also don't reply to emails spreading the latest hilarious Internet jokesuch as when I learned about a seven-year-old boy in England, named Craig Shergold, trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by amassing the largest postcard collection. Oh, wait, that's an urban legend.

10.1.4. Do Now, Then Delete

Requests that are important or quick to execute should be done now. Usually these are requests from the boss or simple requests that would take less time to do than to submit into a request-tracking system or organizer. If something takes less than two minutes to complete, it is less work to do it now than to spend time recording it to do later.




Time Management for System Administrators
Time Management for System Administrators
ISBN: 0596007833
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 117

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