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Inbox Zero-style Outlook Makeover.

So I have a new job, and since I had some downtime this morning, I decided to give my Outlook an Inbox Zero makeover. I got the idea from LifeHacker, but there's plenty of sources online suggesting the same (I stole the name from one of them).

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-gzvHUszGH...s320/inbox.JPG
clicky for biggy

Everything that comes in immediately gets Triage'd into one of five folders:

Respond - Any emails that can be responded to in less than 5 minutes. Anything that can be responded to in less than 1 minute, just do as it comes in and don't bother to file it.
Action - Any emails that require more than 5 minutes of work to respond to, or that have work instructions.
Waiting - Things that other people need to follow up on or get back to you about.
Hold - Stuff that requires no action, but that you want easily accessible. Examples would be tracking numbers, order confirmations, or other stuff you might be referring to over the next week or so.
Vault - Long term reference message storage. This folder can have sub folders by category if desired (I have "CYA" and "Reference," so far), although since it is searchable there probably aren't many needed.
Trash - Yes, I know this is a sixth folder, but it's one that is already there. Delete visciously. Anything that doesn't go in one of the top five folders, or anything from those folders that you are done with and don't need to move to archive, gets deleted immediately.

Oh, and I found/modified VB script macros to move my messages around
Oh, and in the cases of Action/Respond/Waiting, it marks them unread, so I could keep track of the running count of open tasks in those folders. See? One action pending!
AND I made little buttons for them. (See? up by Help? Aren't they cute?)
AND I linked them to keyboard shortcuts.
Oh, and I had to digitally sign the macro package using a certificate I made with selfcert.exe so Outlook will let me run them.

I also wrote most of it up for my blog. I can copy it here, if you like, or you can just google around and figure out the info yourself...that's what I did, and I learned a lot! I'd hate to rob people of the joy of discovery, but if there's enough interest, i'll polish it and post it up.

Sounds pretty jolly. I'd set this up if I actually had work emails.

It seems a bit overdone though. Why not just drag into the folders?

I have inbox and offline PST.

if it's not something for me to work on now, it's moved to the PST. If the person needs it really bad and I've not gotten back to them, they will email me again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeSty (Post 2502264)

Sounds pretty jolly. I'd set this up if I actually had work emails.

It seems a bit overdone though. Why not just drag into the folders?

Because I was really bored

Also, I wanted to learn how to do VB Script macros. Also also, it's a quick way to sort things and mark them unread in one click or one alt-letter instead of click, drag, right click, click, click back to inbox.

I admit, if you're not having to parse 50+ emails a day this system is probably overkill, but my last job, I did nothing and ended up with an inbox with 6000 messages by the time i left.

You and I are cut from the same cloth. I'm a GTD practitioner myself, although the particulars differ.

In my case, I have an inbox and then I have an action box, which is what I actually read. The action box collects all unread messages and any messages which I have marked as flagged. Flagged means that the message is something that should be in my universe, it will require an action from me or my attention. At any given time, I seem to have between 3 and 10 flagged messages, plus the unreads, but I am pretty vigilant about acting on things as soon as I can.

For me, anything else is just in the regular inbox, which I hardly ever look at. I suppose it is the equivalent of your vault. The search function on OS X mail is fast and robust enough with my 15,000 message vault that I quit filing things a long time ago. I realized I was simply scratching my own organizational itches without adding simplicity or value to my system.

My mail system runs itself -- I had to set up a couple of smart mailboxes, which took about 10 minutes. I run my life out of the excellent program Omnifocus, which is a task manager that I use for hold/waiting, and other contexts. Since the mail is so easily searchable, I don't worry about creating more walls in that part of my life. As a bonus, my OF database automatically syncs to my iPhone, so I am working from the same lists at all times. Unfortunately, OF is OS X only. I hear that there are hacks to MS Outlook to add similar functionality.

I've been kicking around an idea about for a thread about this stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubertuber (Post 2502275)

with my 15,000 message vault that I quit filing things a long time ago. I realized I was simply scratching my own organizational itches without adding simplicity or value to my system.

I agree, with search as powerful as it is these days, sorting by content is a masturbatory gesture. However, I think that sorting by function may serve some purpose, since the shortcuts I built in remove all boundaries to actually using the system as intended. I don't keep any external To Do lists, and in fact have another rule running to copy my sent messages into my inbox for similar filing in the same system. I've read the pros and cons of keeping a separate to-do list, but right now this meets what I predict to be my needs, although I am very open to further optimization.

i didn't realize that you scripted it :) that's pretty cool... :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by twistedmosaic (Post 2502272)

That's quite respectable.

I'll be honest, I just use GMAIL to filter a lot of crapmail and I have only started to organize my Thunderbird mail for my .EDU addresses. I have set it so that various messages from different Listservs are posted in their own folders, and then I have folders for copies of important messages. I don't have an inflow yet where enough automation is required.

However, on GMAIL, I get enough crap that I do have it filtered. The filter+label system there is SO ridiculously awesome and easy. TFP replies go in one folder, facebook things in another, weekly updates etc etc. It's information overload, but at least I aggregate and reduce it.

Inbox optimisation certainly helps productivity.

My system is as follows:

1) Keep Inbox sorted "By Conversation" so that all messages group - just like a forum.
2) Move all sent items to Inbox as soon as they're sent.
3) Only keep threads in Inbox that have something still pending on them.
4) Under my Inbox I have 3 folders "2008" or general closed threads, "IT" for threads relating to IT equipment issues (not part of my job, but I'm the go to guy), "Personal" for private stuff and jokes or humour from anyone.
5) Use Autoarchive to move offline all messages from these three folders once they're 3 months old. Do not use Autoarchive on Inbox itself.
6) Use coloured flags exactly like twistedmosaic uses his sub folders. I use RED for complaints and emergencies (I'm Quality and Regulatory manager of a healthcare company), use GREEN for "don't forget about this, but it's not urgent", use other colours to categorise things into "nag a colleague", "chase a supplier" etc.
7) Try to keep Inbox to about 50-70 threads max.
8) Try to keep coloured flags to ~20.

One productivity thing I'd advocate to anyone is "learn to use tasks and appointments correctly". Our Customer Service manager needed to be FORCED to use tasks rather than blocking out times in her calendar, and what happened is she'd get past the time she'd booked and no longer have a reminder to do stuff - by using tasks you get a constant reminder that you've missed a deadline...

So my Outlook had an unrelated glitch today and had to be re-installed---argh! Luckily macros are stored seperately from the outlook build, so I just had to remap the buttons. Just in case I ever lose the macros, however, I figured I'd copy-paste them here. This works if you have your five inbox subfolders named "Vault, Hold, Action, Respond, and Waiting" but the macros have different names because I edited them mid-stream.

Anyways, :thumbsup: If you're trying to read it, it is actually five identical macros repeated.

Code:

Sub Action()



On Error Resume Next



 



 



    Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder, objInbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder



    Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace, objItem As Outlook.MailItem



 



 



    Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")



    Set objInbox = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)



    Set objFolder = objInbox.Folders("Action")

            

            

'Assume this is a mail folder



 



 



    If objFolder Is Nothing Then



        MsgBox "This folder doesn't exist!", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "INVALID FOLDER"



    End If



 



 



    If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count = 0 Then



        'Require that this procedure be called only when a message is selected



        Exit Sub



    End If



 



 



    For Each objItem In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection



        If objFolder.DefaultItemType = olMailItem Then



            If objItem.Class = olMail Then



                objItem.UnRead = True

                objItem.Move objFolder



            End If



        End If



    Next



 



 

        

    Set objItem = Nothing



    Set objFolder = Nothing



    Set objInbox = Nothing



    Set objNS = Nothing



End Sub

Sub Respond()





On Error Resume Next



 



 



    Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder, objInbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder



    Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace, objItem As Outlook.MailItem



 



 



    Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")



    Set objInbox = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)



    Set objFolder = objInbox.Folders("Respond")

            

            

'Assume this is a mail folder



 



 



    If objFolder Is Nothing Then



        MsgBox "This folder doesn't exist!", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "INVALID FOLDER"



    End If



 



 



    If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count = 0 Then



        'Require that this procedure be called only when a message is selected



        Exit Sub



    End If



 



 



    For Each objItem In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection



        If objFolder.DefaultItemType = olMailItem Then



            If objItem.Class = olMail Then



                objItem.UnRead = True

                objItem.Move objFolder



            End If



        End If



    Next



 



 

        

    Set objItem = Nothing



    Set objFolder = Nothing



    Set objInbox = Nothing



    Set objNS = Nothing



End Sub



Sub Waiting()



On Error Resume Next



 



 



    Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder, objInbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder



    Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace, objItem As Outlook.MailItem



 



 



    Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")



    Set objInbox = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)



    Set objFolder = objInbox.Folders("Waiting")

            

            

'Assume this is a mail folder



 



 



    If objFolder Is Nothing Then



        MsgBox "This folder doesn't exist!", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "INVALID FOLDER"



    End If



 



 



    If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count = 0 Then



        'Require that this procedure be called only when a message is selected



        Exit Sub



    End If



 



 



    For Each objItem In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection



        If objFolder.DefaultItemType = olMailItem Then



            If objItem.Class = olMail Then



                objItem.UnRead = True

                objItem.Move objFolder



            End If



        End If



    Next



 



 

        

    Set objItem = Nothing



    Set objFolder = Nothing



    Set objInbox = Nothing



    Set objNS = Nothing



End Sub



Sub Archive()



On Error Resume Next



 



 



    Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder, objInbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder



    Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace, objItem As Outlook.MailItem



 



 



    Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")



    Set objInbox = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)



    Set objFolder = objInbox.Folders("Vault")

            

            

'Assume this is a mail folder



 



 



    If objFolder Is Nothing Then



        MsgBox "This folder doesn't exist!", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "INVALID FOLDER"



    End If



 



 



    If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count = 0 Then



        'Require that this procedure be called only when a message is selected



        Exit Sub



    End If



 



 



    For Each objItem In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection



        If objFolder.DefaultItemType = olMailItem Then



            If objItem.Class = olMail Then



                objItem.UnRead = False

                objItem.Move objFolder



            End If



        End If



    Next



 



 

        

    Set objItem = Nothing



    Set objFolder = Nothing



    Set objInbox = Nothing



    Set objNS = Nothing



End Sub



Sub TempHold()



On Error Resume Next



 



 



    Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder, objInbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder



    Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace, objItem As Outlook.MailItem



 



 



    Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")



    Set objInbox = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)



    Set objFolder = objInbox.Folders("Hold")

            

            

'Assume this is a mail folder



 



 



    If objFolder Is Nothing Then



        MsgBox "This folder doesn't exist!", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "INVALID FOLDER"



    End If



 



 



    If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count = 0 Then



        'Require that this procedure be called only when a message is selected



        Exit Sub



    End If



 



 



    For Each objItem In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection



        If objFolder.DefaultItemType = olMailItem Then



            If objItem.Class = olMail Then



                objItem.UnRead = False

                objItem.Move objFolder



            End If



        End If



    Next



 



 

        

    Set objItem = Nothing



    Set objFolder = Nothing



    Set objInbox = Nothing



    Set objNS = Nothing



End Sub

I have "Unread Mail", "For Follow Up" and "Important".

When it comes in, it's in Unread Mail. As I read them, they automatically mark read.

If it's something I can't reply immediately to, it gets moved to For Follow Up automatically when I flag it.

If it's login information, etc, I just do a right click > Move to Important. That's enough for me, and search is responsive enough to poll the 50,000+ emails I have in my Inbox.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinn (Post 2502816)

I have "Unread Mail", "For Follow Up" and "Important".

When it comes in, it's in Unread Mail. As I read them, they automatically mark read.

If it's something I can't reply immediately to, it gets moved to For Follow Up automatically when I flag it.

If it's login information, etc, I just do a right click > Move to Important. That's enough for me, and search is responsive enough to poll the 50,000+ emails I have in my Inbox.

This is the point I keep making to the people I work with, who can never get their head round the fact that I can pull messages out of one big folder faster than they can carefully track it down in their huge array of folders (my line manager has ~200 folders, some containing only single figures of items). :oogle: