life.i.think

The other day Cameron and I were talking about a better way of labeling and prioritizing your mail in GMail. It is a system of his friend’s devise, who’s name I’ve forgotten (I’ll update this when I get it.)

The system is simply to create 4 labels, and then apply filters to the emails you receive on a regular basis.

1. Now (Mail you need to look at RIGHT NOW!)
2. Soon (Mail that you should probably read by the end of the day)
3. Later (Mail to read when you find that free time you’ve been looking for)
4. Never ( crickets .. I mean maybe you might want to read them … sometime …)

So for example, Twitter direct messages auto go to Now. An email about that fancy pants party you’re going to in 2 days would go under Soon. Facebook messages would be filed under Later. Financial statements might go to Never.

It’s important that you preface the words (Now, …) with numbers so GMail orders them properly.
This works fantastically with Mihai Parparita’s wonderful GMail Macros Greasemonkey script.

Update: The aforementioned friend who devised this brilliant scheme is Ted Grubb.