(Archived) Inbox 0 and Evernote

[andrzej 3]

Hi,

I'm using Evernote to apply some of the GTD techniques. It works really well for me.

I also try to keep my email inbox empty. Everyday I go through the emails and forward them to my Evernote email, so that I can make the priorities in Evernote. That's all cool.

When I review the notes in Evernote and I want to act on one of them which happens to be a response to an email - I would like to quickly jump to this email conversation and be in "reply" mode. It may be opening a gmail website or Mail.app, whatever. It may be even emailing from Evernote, but that's not possible now.

At the moment I just switch to my email client and search this email, which is fine but requires lots of clicks.

Is there any way of simplifying this flow? Any hints?

Regards,

Andrzej

[davidward 13]

Andrzej,

I just wrote a blog post about my plan for inbox zero using Evernote. Basically, for any email that needs a reply I either (a) reply immediately or ( apply my one remaining label (after getting rid of all others), "@Reply". I then archive the email and retrieve it when I'm ready to reply. This allows my reply to stay with the original email, which is what you indicate you want to do. Only after I have replied do I forward to EN for tagging, etc.

David

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I'm slowly working towards this, and I am glad that the question came up. My initial burst of enthusiasm resulted in a mess of unreplied messages. I think I like David's suggestion, and I will give it a think.

[Bojan011 27]

It's great to see that there are a lot of people who were applying GTD in Evernote. I am currently using OmniFocus, but my Evernote inbox is still used a lot for collecting all information that I read on my mobile devices (iPad/iPhone), because OmniFocus doesn't have email service included.

Evernote is really good for GTD, but lacks simplicity and tagging a lot is way more complicated than clicking on a checkbox. And let's face it, using checkboxes and manually creating them is not that easy, especially not on phone.

It's robust, but it can do great job.

[peterfmartin 221]

Probably to my detriment, I haven't yet read up on on Inbox Zero, and my inbox is often larger than I want it to be. I know I could dig into Merlin Mann's stuff, and I should in the future, but for now, a quick question to all of you, or at least DavidWard: What's the difference (to productivity, organization, mind like water, etc.) between having an empty inbox with a separate list of conversations tagged "Reply," and just keeping those emails in the inbox? I think I've gotten good at removing all non-reply to-dos from my inbox, but when I need to reply to something and can't right away, I keep it in the inbox, because that seems like the most logical place. Plus it requires no action.

For those of you who faithfully follow Inbox Zero with a method like DavidWard's, what's the benefit to moving reply-necessary emails out of the inbox?

[Metrodon 2,184]

Merlin Mann is hilarious, no he is genuinely funny. I think he is almost 11 months late delivering his box because he spends so much time getting his system for getting things done working correctly.

I like him, but the most sensible things he says he doesn't seem to put into practice - things like, get started on a task in order to get it finished.

[davidward 13]

@peterfmartin,

Notice I said "my PLAN for inbox zero". I haven't achieved it yet, although I have begun the process (link to my post).

Here's the way I see it: Once you have an empty inbox, it probably doesn't matter if you keep emails that need a reply in the inbox for the day (or two), unless you have an inordinate amount. So, once I am there, I will try it both ways and if I can eliminate all labels, I will.

I am intoxicated by the thought of an empty inbox and look forward to getting there. I currently have 16,541 emails in my inbox, so this will be. . . interesting.

David

[gazumped 11,656]

Not to be depressive, but I once managed inbox zero successfully for a whole month.. before the replies to my replies started building up and zero edged up to 100 items, then things started getting away from me. Don't know if MM says it in the literature (with all this email, who has time to read?) but I strongly suggest you look on the "zero" element of this like a business plan or a budget - it's a target you'll work towards, not something you can maintain permanently. Or maybe you're just smarter than me, and you can. Good luck with the journey!

PS I didn't originally have Evernote to help me keep things together, and I'm now steaming back toward IZ with some confidence. Maybe EN will make the difference.

[s2sailor 2,186]

My dream is for an integrated mail client within Evernote. I currently work out of two systems, Evernote and email and am constantly bouncing between the two. Yes, I can forward emails to EN and email out of EN (with difficulty), but it is clumsy and requires multiple steps. An integrated mail client would allow my EN inbox folder to be a true inbox for everything, including email where I could file, tag, forward or reply to my heart's content and easily keep everything in EN. I realize this may not be core EN functionality, and maybe better suited for an integration app such as Zendone, but having this ability somewhere, would be nice.

[Grimmknuckle 6]

Hi,

I'm using Evernote to apply some of the GTD techniques. It works really well for me.

I also try to keep my email inbox empty. Everyday I go through the emails and forward them to my Evernote email, so that I can make the priorities in Evernote. That's all cool.

When I review the notes in Evernote and I want to act on one of them which happens to be a response to an email - I would like to quickly jump to this email conversation and be in "reply" mode. It may be opening a gmail website or Mail.app, whatever. It may be even emailing from Evernote, but that's not possible now.

At the moment I just switch to my email client and search this email, which is fine but requires lots of clicks.

Is there any way of simplifying this flow? Any hints?

Regards,

Andrzej

I'm also working towards a zero Inbox.

I think you are going about the process the wrong way, though this is just my own personal opinion.

I think you should follow this order. (Note: This order is from the book "Bit Literacy" by Mark Hurst)

1) Read all personal e-mails, then delete them.

2) Delete all spam mail.

3) Engage FYIs and action items, then delete them.

In Particular

- Delete or file all FYIs, optionally reading them first.

- Finish all quick "two-minute" todos, then delete them.

- Move all big todos to a bit-literate todo list then delete them

I will add to this and say store only e-mails or information you want to keep in Evernote.

By acting on your e-mails in your e-mail Inbox you ensure that it does get done and that you don't clutter you Evernote database with useless e-mails that you will have to sort through later. Forwarding all your e-mails to Evernote then acting on them wastes your upload limit and makes things more complicated. Evernote should be the last stop for your e-mail, whether it's the forwarded e-mail or just a part of the e-mail you clipped into a note.

[llbean 8]

Issue I see is that EN really needs to be a direct mail app, cutting out Outlook or Mail, not just a place to forward and collect. Maybe it is me, but do I really need to archive every "hi how are you doing" email from a friend in EN, thus creating multiple extra steps to this process? So lots of emails should not be handled this way and should be processed strictly on within the mail app?

Also, if one could tag all emails in Mail or if Finder could tag as robustly as EN, what is the point in EN???? Anybody?

[Grimmknuckle 6]

Also, if one could tag all emails in Mail or if Finder could tag as robustly as EN, what is the point in EN???? Anybody?

That's the problem a lot of people are facing, especially in the corporate environment. E-mail clients have gotten better at sorting, categorizing, and searching mail that people are content to using it as a database system. Though it has those features e-mail was never intended to be used as a big filing cabinet. Think of it like when you get physical mail. When you get mail at home you don't leave it sitting around after you have read it. Either you throw it out or you save it somewhere.

Since e-mail takes up no physical space it seems like less of a burden when it piles up, but having a lot of e-mails in your Inbox can decrease productivity. I have personally seen people with e-mail inboxes filled with tens of thousands of e-mails and I could see first-hand how it slowed them down. Finding things, even with the search feature, became difficult and new e-mail gets lost within the old ones. It gets to the point where you begin to dread opening your e-mail client so you do so less frequently.

Some people have no trouble managing inboxes filled with e-mails. But a problem they and anyone who uses e-mail as their personal database will face is that you have no control on what enters your Inbox. It’s impossible to know when you are going to get an e-mail, how many you are going to get, who it's from, or whether it is junk. At least with Evernote you control what you add into it.

I agree with you not every "hi how are you doing" e-mail should be saved. But letting an e-mail inbox fill up with newsletters, junk mail, and old messages is just as bad.

[SamCarson 0]

I practice Inbox Zero, and it's been keeping me sane for years. At a previous firm, I used a bunch of outlook scripts for gmail-ifying outlook 2003 - using categories for tags, etc, and mapping the gmail keyboard shortcuts. Worth doing.

In gmail now, there is the priority Inbox style - and this is really helpful. I use three sections: Important and Everything Else and All:Starred. The All:Star is different from the normal inbox:Starred; and means all starred emails that are not visible in the Important and Everything Else sections get stuck in this section. This is a short term work list (ie reply or action), but it lets me empty my Important inbox really quickly.

I also have a tag called EN, and I apply this tag in gmail when I'm archiving, and it is liked to Evernote via IFTTT.com. I also forward emails to the Evernote email address, it also puts a similar tag on it.

The main purpose of putting things in Evernote is to build information piles, I merge notes a lot - which allows me to keep a historical record of a project, helpful.

One day, my pleas will be heard and they will implement the Due Date feature (*ahem*) and there will be another reason to forward emails to Evernote.

[llbean 8]

Very interesting discussion. They thing which I find interesting is that there is not one single app which can do everything. Apple's appeal is it is gives a new user very simple, effective apps, with plenty of voids and weaknesses to allow developers room to innovate and improve. Problem is once you get into it you spend a lot of time trying to find the right combination of apps to fulfill all of your needs, and the combination changes constantly due to either improvements or your better understanding of the intent of an app.

Perhaps this is should be split into another thread, but what the execution phase? So I use an IMAP to process into EN then I'm suppose to execute? It would be nice if EN had the features of a Reminder/Todo type app. I like the fact that my iPhone shows exactly what I need to do before I unlock the screen. Perhaps EN is better for large projects but simple day to day stuff, I can't seem to find the real advantage to EN. So another incomplete process, more opportunity for user error and more integration problems.

Are there any Reminder/Todo type apps which can directly interface with EN or is everything in the execution phase pretty much manual?

Thanks for all the help!

[jbenson2 2,147]

Are there any Reminder/Todo type apps which can directly interface with EN or is everything in the execution phase pretty much manual?

Tusk Tools Calendar directly interfaces with Evernote.

http://www.moreproductivenow.com/evernote.html

[peterfmartin 221]

Are there any Reminder/Todo type apps which can directly interface with EN or is everything in the execution phase pretty much manual?

Tusk Tools Calendar directly interfaces with Evernote.

http://www.moreprodu...m/evernote.html

So does zendone.

[llbean 8]

Are there any Reminder/Todo type apps which can directly interface with EN or is everything in the execution phase pretty much manual?

Tusk Tools Calendar directly interfaces with Evernote.

http://www.moreprodu...m/evernote.html

Sorry, I should have specified for Macs, looks like Tusk Tools is Windows only.

Thanks!