Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Alex P. — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:55:37 GMT

I would love to read more about email management. I just started my job about two months ago and I am really starting to get more emails every day.

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Ben M. Schorr — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:56:04 GMT

Well done, Tom. I've long been an advocate for my clients to make better use of search folders in trying to manage large volumes of e-mail.

This gives a little new life to categories as well. I was beginning to question the usefulness of categories to me in my day-to-day operation, but this has inspired some new thoughts along that line.

-Ben-

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Martin Edelius — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:37:23 GMT

I like this approach a lot but as I see it there are two obstacles when it comes to using search folders (for anything) - one major and one annoying.

The major drawback of using search folders is that they aren't supported on Windows Mobile - at least not in any existing version of WinMo. I fail to see why, it should be possible to at least get a "Read Only" sync with the ones on the server.

But this leads us to the annoying matter with them; if you use Cached Exchange mode - which you should - the search folders aren't propagated to the server and only lives in your OST-file.

You need to jump through some rather stupid hoops in order to get your existing search folders on to the server (and thus make them available in Outlook Web Access) and as soon as you enable cached mode again any new search folders won't be created on the server.

So until these two issues are taken care of it'll be very hard to convince some users to use search folders, no matter how useful they actually are.

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Spence Lloyd — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:00:38 GMT

This works great--but one question--why do messages I send now show up in the "New Mail" search folder? Doesn't seem logical, but that's what's happening. Anyone else have this problem?

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Sachin Jain — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:17:07 GMT

It seems to be a great article, I am giving it a try..lets hope it will help me to manage my emails. I love this blog.

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Marvin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:47:31 GMT

this is a great post. Is there a way to set the "New Mail" favorite search folder to be the default mail folder outlook shows when you start outlook?

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

outblog — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:27:52 GMT

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

Spence Lloyd – It sounds like your New Mail Search Folder is set to search for mail in your entire mailbox – you need to limit it to just the Inbox. To do this, right click the Search Folder, choose "Customize this Search Folder", then click Browse – uncheck the Mailbox box and make sure Inbox is checked and Sent Items is not checked. Let me know how it goes!

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

nparker13 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:48:12 GMT

This article is great! I just started using a

similar system, which I've found to be

EXTREMELY helpful. I use colored flags for

triage and categories for drilldown enabled

storage. If you're interested in reading more,

see below...sorry if it gets too long, but

this has been EXTREMELY effective for me, and

would be very happy to see it help someone

else.

= PREPARATION =

I've created a local PST folder with the

following folders: (1) Staging (2) Archive. In

archive are by year to reduce footprint for

one folder.

_Toolbar_

I've created a toolbar which has 5 colored

flags with a name next to each (defined in

customize), which adds meaning to me.

-Red = Action (need to do/add to task list)

-Orange = Follow Up (waiting on information)

-Yellow = Reference (anything i could need to

refer to in future)

-Blue = Feedback (positive

comments/performance feedback from

coworkers/bosses)

-Complete Check = Complete (ready to archive)

_Search Folders_

Then I've created several search folders. If

they have a star below that indicates I've set

it to show # of items total (indicator that

messages are in them: read or unread). All the

search folders spider ALL folders in the

offline PST.

-0 To Flag*

-1a Action*

-1b Followup*

-1c Reference

-2 Complete (shows complete flags only in

staging [ready to moved to archive folder])

-4 All by Category (Shows all grouped by

category sorted by date, so i can easily drill

down or search)

-4 No Category

_Categories_

All categories are topical and built on a

quasi-hierarchy. I purposefully dont use

spaces, as later on it makes life easier, so i

use the following naming convention:

'Category/Subcategory' (without 's). So for

example: Teams/Communications;

Teams/Recruiting; Other/Training;

Other/Personal etc...

= PROCESS =

0. To start all non-calendar

invite/acceptances, etc are moved to the

offline folder 1. Staging. This immediately

clears my inbox (as my companys server-based

retention policies are restrictive).

1. Since incoming mail comes in unflagged, it

shows up as an unread item in the search

folder 0 To Flag. From here, I triage mail

based on GTD: either reply quickly, mark

complete, or mark as

actionable/followup/reference/feedback.

2. I then follow up with items throughout the

day in the 1a actionable folder and 1b follow

up folder, and either work on them or move

them to tasks on my to do list, attaching the

email and marking them complete from my email

triage.

3. Finally, at the end of the day, I go

through all items in 4 No category, and use a

quick trick to categorize. First, all items

are grouped by sender, b/c for me a lot of my

contacts are all relevant to one particular

category. I go through an at either the individual message level, or if i want to categorize all messages from a particular person, i press the keys

(not at the same time, but quickly after each

other) [alt]+[e]+[i]. This brings up the

category selector. Since my categories dont have spaces, i can begin typing, as its selecting, and once i hit the right one (you can arrow too), you hit the [Spacebar] to mark the category (you can also select multiple), then [Enter] to close the category selector.

At the end of the day, all actionable items

are either in my task list or complete, and

the only item in my search folder that has an

indicator is 1b follow up, so that the next

day I will check that.

If I need to find something recent, I can go to my 4 All by Category, and scroll through, or use find.

Hope you find this helpful...if so, post and let me know!

Nate

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Martin Edelius — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:07:45 GMT

@Marvin: Yes.

Open the "Tools" menu, select "Options" and go to the "Other" tab.

Click the "Advanced" button and you should be able to select any folder you like as your start folder.

HTH.

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Josh P. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:30:55 GMT

What I really need is a way to categorize messages in a shared (i.e. server) mailbox that multiple people can view and manipulate. As far as I can tell, when I categorize messages, since these categories are stored locally, my work mate cannot see them.

Thus, we're using flags right now to indicate items that are FYI, etc. But the flags cannot be customized (change color, label, and so on) so they are not that helpful.

Is there a way to do this? Even a way to attach a "sticky" to a message that multiple users can view on their workstations would be great.

Can anyone help? We use Outlook 2007 and Exchange.

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Jon B. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:07:03 GMT

One aspect that seems off to me is the specific situation of if I flag an email as "Response Needed" and respond to it without clearing that category, the email is responded back to me and it will not show up in the "New Email" Category since the category condition for that email isn't empty.

So you'll have to clear the category condition on any email correspondence sent within the organization AND hope nobody else is using categories at all.

I am using Outlook 2003.

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Rob Schneider — Fri, 01 May 2009 12:18:16 GMT

I was excited to read this idea ... then when I went to implement, I found that there is no "Categories" menu on the Edit Menu for my inbox ... My main inbox is on an IMAP server.

Re these ideas only workable when using an Exchange server?

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Carsten Pihl — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:54:31 GMT

Nice tip, but it doesnt work on iphones, then half the point is gone.

Then I have to go back to the old inbox, and moving emails to other folders. Then the question arises:

Is it possible to make a rule that moves an email from the mailbox (eg inbox) after you have answered it. Now you have dealt with the email, and it should be possible to automaticly move it to a (archive) folder.

Same for making rules for other actions, for example 2 days after read or something.

All the rules starts with the moving when you receive the email, which is useful sometimes, but not all the times.

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

outblog — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:26:49 GMT

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Rob Schneider - Sorry, categories won't work against an IMAP account.

Carsten Pihl - Unfortunately, there isn't a way to set up a Search Folder based on whether or not a mail has been replied to.

Tom O'Neill

Outlook Program Manager

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

tpetite — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:43:57 GMT

Hi. This is an excellent blog. I would like more on this topic.

I have found a problem. If someone sends an email to me that already has a category assigned to it, it will never show up in my "New Mail" folder because the criteria for new mail is "Category is empty". The category is not empty and unless I check my Inbox I will not see it.

The resolution I have made is to continue to use the Inbox. Use the categories and search folders you have outlined except for the New mail search folder. When I am done with the message, I categorize it so that the search folders work appropriately but move it to a processed mail folder which is a sub folder of my inbox.

Do you have any other suggestions?

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

Mark Watson — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:20:32 GMT

tpetite -

When I look at Tools/Rules and Alerts

I have a rule called 'Clear categories on mail (recommended)'

I didn't create this rule so I have always assumed it was there in Exchange 2007 by default. It does the following:

- Apply this rule after the message arrives

- Assigned to any category

- Clear message's categories

If you don't have this rule, perhaps you could create it?

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

chanson42 — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:33:35 GMT

@author: Very nice, thanks!

re: Carsten Pihl's post - That gets to a really good question: Is there a way to have rules triggered on some event other than on receipt of mail (or the manual "apply rule")? I would love to be able to apply a category and have that action trigger a rule (like for all in TODO category, move to TODO folder), which would solve the server-based vs. client-based issue with search folders.

Actually, truth be told, I would love a hotkey setup where I could be reading an email and hit ctrl-shift F2 to file it in "follow up" or whatever. Anyone know of a process hack for this?

re: Triaging Mail with Categories and Search Folders

tpetite — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:16:02 GMT

re: chanson42 post -

I have created a custom toolbar with three buttons that I access through keyboard shortcuts.

The three buttons are "Copy", "Move" and "Category"

I used the following article that explains how to do this under the heading :Configure Move and Copy toolbar shortcuts"

http://lifehacker.com/381966/tweak-microsoft-outlook-to-empty-your-inbox-faster