Why Track Important Emails With Statuses?

1. Because emails are badly formatted tasks

   Many of your important emails, if they cannot be completed in 2 minutes, are actionable: they are small email tasks that are best managed in Gmail, as actioned emails. Giving them a Status label prioritizes them and keeps them on the radar until completion. (Why are they best managed in Gmail? Because they're too small, ill-formed and fast-moving to waste effort duplicating them to another system; especially when most people spend all day using email client as their hub).

2. Never forget an important email

   In regular Gmail, all emails are listed in the order they arrive, and once they have dropped off the front page they've essentially sunk into the swamp, never to be seen again. With Status labels, no important emails disappear between the cracks.

3. Process emails on a schedule that suits you

   With Status labels, you can frequently scan & empty your inbox (without significantly interrupting your work), prioritize your emails, and block out a proper "email session" once or twice a day to process everything you've actioned with a true "email mindset". Contrast this with regular email interruptions where you're always fighting fires and getting distracted from your work.

How To Track Emails

Give the email a Status:

By default, ActiveInbox follow the GTD® Status categories:

• Next - top priority that must be done asap
• Action - must be done in the next few days
• Waiting On - you expect someone to reply
• Some Day - the email can be handled in the future (or you need more info before deciding what to do)

However, ActiveInbox is not limited to GTD® Statuses, and you can create your own Status labels.

After you have given the email a Status, archive it.

Finish the email

Regularly review your ActiveInbox Review Bar to tackle your actioned emails, and when the conversation is complete either remove the Status label or click the Finish button at the top of the conversation.

Some Examples:

A co-worker who says "I'll get back to you on Wed about Project X" would have the Waiting On Status.

A request for analysis from your boss will get an Action because you want to give it proper thought (i.e. not a quick reply).

A tip from a reader (if you're a journalist) or a suggestion from a co-worker (in an office) might get Some Day, so you can keep it on your radar, but not respond until it becomes worthwhile (e.g. they send you another email, or you have some free time).

FAQs

Do I track every email?

No, just important emails that must be completed.

I use a seperate task/project manager, why would I give my emails Status?

ActiveInbox works alongside your task/project managers, and follows the 80/20 rule: 80% of email tasks are too small, ill-defined and fast flowing to be worth duplicating into another system, so manage them in Gmail (where you spend most of your time anyway). Then export the remaining 20% (events for your calendar, big/collaborative tasks, projects) to more appropriate systems. Simply put, giving emails a Status is a lightweight way to ensure they all get done efficiently.

Tips

Consider a Time Label Type

In ActiveInbox you can create a new Label Type (to give labels specific meaning, such as Project, Reference, Status, etc.) using the Preferences. You might want to create a Time Label Type (with the Prefix T/ and labels T/5m, T/15m, T/30m) so you can assess how long an email will take to respond, and when you have a spare X minutes, pick emails that can be done in that time.

Maintain "hard edges" between your task lists

Using the principles of GTD®, we advocate maintaining "hard edges" between your lists. That is, if you've moved an email to your calendar, provide a link back to the email but do not give it an active Status. If you've moved the email to a task in another system, either send the email to that system or else provide a link from the task back to the email, but do not give the email an active Status.

The idea is that an actionable item should only appear on one list (calendar, tasks, next action emails, today emails, etc.). Each list represents a distinct purpose, and it is critical they are kept separate from each other. (In the words of GTD, "if they lost their edges and begin to blend, much of the value of organizing will be lost").

Distributing actionable items throughout multiple systems is perfectly okay (e.g. your task manager, your email, your desk), so long as they are fully functional within themselves and enable you to complete all the tasks contained therein. Then it is simply a matter of dedicating a little focus every day to each system. (We do advocate having a 'master' system that coordinates your projects, responsibilities and goals; and schedules time for each sub-system - but that can be as simple as a text file and calendar).

Some common ways to create connections between Gmail+ActiveInbox and your task manager

• Receive a task in email (e.g. a customer request), evolve it through discussion, and move the final agreement to your task/issue manager. Include in the new entry a link back to the email discussion in Gmail (using the URL in your browser's address bar). The rapid discussion takes place in the best place for it (Gmail), and if you group them into a single Project, multiple emails can result in just one action in the other system.
• Represent your task manager projects as labels in Gmail. You can link to label searches in Gmail (using the URL in the browser's address bar when in the search results), so you can store that link against the project in your task manager, and pull up all related Gmail discussions with a single click.
• Let your task manager direct your email activities. Schedule daily blocks for processing emails to manage your time, weekly reminders to conduct a weekly review and guide the emails that need to be sent for important projects/people. For instance, if you deal with investors, you might have a monthly reminder in your task manager to email them all to share the latest relevant news and keep the connection alive (tip: we suggest a context label for all these emails, such as C/Investors, so you can pull up all previous engagements - you can even set a Gmail filter to automatically apply the label based on email addresses).