PATRICK SCHULTZ

UPDATE: This entry is a re-post from my currently retired other blog darnteuton.com. In January 2006, I was actually using Thunderbird instead of Apple Mail, but times have changed. By now my Getting Things Done setup is firmly in the capable hands of the wonderful application Things, which interacts quite smoothly with Apple Mail on Mac OS X Leopard. Nonetheless, for those still seeking GTD-bliss with Thunderbird, see below for my old implementation (I can’t guarantee it works with newer versions of Thunderbird, but feel free to try and let me know in the comments).

My Thunderbird setup: Labels in Thunderbird can serve the same function as MailTags in Apple Mail. You can rename the default labels to your liking - I decided to go with only three: “Response”, “Follow up”, and “To Read”. The labels can easily be set by pressing 1-3, and 0 to reset the message to unlabeled. “Response” is for all emails that I need to respond to at a later time, i.e. if I can’t do it right away and it takes longer than 2 minutes. “Follow up” is for all messages that require me to follow up with some kind of action, such as taking notes on something, doing some research, making a call. “To Read” is for longer emails that I need to read through at a later time; for example: I am a graduate student in the sciences and I get email notifications when new papers come out in different journals. I go over the abstracts whenever I have a couple of free minutes.

So how about SmartFolders? Thunderbird’s equivalent are saved views. You can easily filter all your messages by label, i.e. display all messages labeled “Response” in all your mailboxes, and then save this view as a folder. You guessed right, I saved four searches: “Unread”, “Response”, “Follow Up”, and “To Read”. I never even look at my Inbox. I just look at the “Unread” folder and always make a decision on every message right away. I either answer right away, archive it, or label it for later review.

Caveats: If you set a label and then move a message to a different folder via the menu or the contextual menu, the label gets lost. Workaround: only move messages via drag and drop. If you label a message and then move it to an IMAP folder, it will not show up in your saved searches until you open the IMAP folder. This defeats the purpose of labeling and saved searches. Workaround: install the Sync on Arrival extension. Now IMAP folders are automatically updated and messages downloaded as soon as they arrive there. You will also have to select “Check this folder for new messages” in the Folder properties window for all your IMAP folders.

You can find more on this topic on 43folders, Hawk Wings, entropicprincipal and fyreplace.com.