Outbox Zero
If you are using OutLinker you may have achieved Inbox Zero for the first time in awhile. Don’t stop there.
While your inbox contains a mixture of spam, bulk mail, info-only cc’s, and perhaps 10% actionable information, your “Sent Items” will tend to have a much more concentrated set of …
- commitments you have made to others
- things you are now waiting for
- things you need to contact others about
- things you need to inform others about
- things you want to retain for ready reference
These are open loops you want to capture in whatever GTD system you are using at the end of each day. If you are using MindManager with ResultsManager and have Outlinker installed, open your sent-items, select the messages you sent, and run OutLinker. At the prompt you can type …
- d – to delete the message
- a – to archive the message
- ra – to reply all to supplement the message (rad will reply and delete)
- f – to forward the message
..or you can type in your “next action” to send it to MindManager. If you precede the text with “info:” or “info only:” it will not be marked with a action icon.
If you lead the string with “olwf”, “olio”, or “olca”, MindReader will markup the task as being something you are waiting for, owe to, or need to contact about the person you sent it to. [Note: its not working right for multiple recipients at the moment]. Gmail is more persistent in its desire to keep things in the Sent Folder, so you need to implement a filter that labels all your outgoing mail and then act on that label folder as if it was your sent items.
Matches: from:(yourname@gmail.com)
Do This: Apply label “_Sent”
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