I Absolutely Hate Dealing With Email
Summary
TLDRThe video script discusses the challenges of email management, highlighting the preference for instant messaging over email in the current generation. It explores Nate Graham's email management strategy from the KDE project, emphasizing 'Inbox Zero' as an ideal state. The script details Nate's approach, which includes using a desktop email client like Thunderbird, setting up automatic categorization with color-coded tags, and promptly responding to or deleting emails. It also advises on separating personal and work emails, using email client apps over web-based clients, and the importance of archiving over deleting for peace of mind. The script concludes with a call to action for viewers to improve their email systems and engage with the content.
Takeaways
- 📧 The speaker prefers instant messaging over email and wishes for a more open and unified instant messaging system like email.
- 📈 Email management is essential, and the speaker looks to Nate Graham's approach for inspiration, aiming for 'Inbox Zero' to signify all tasks are addressed.
- 🔑 Treating emails as tasks, the speaker suggests handling them promptly to clear the 'to-do' list assigned by others.
- 🏞 Separating personal and work emails is crucial for maintaining a work-life balance and avoiding the chaos of mixed accounts.
- 💻 Using a desktop email client like Thunderbird or KDE's kmail is recommended over web-based clients for better organization and efficiency.
- 📊 Automatic categorization of emails through rules or filters helps in quickly sorting and tagging messages, making management more systematic.
- 🗂 The speaker advocates for a stack-like approach to emails, prioritizing the newest and deleting older, less relevant emails.
- ⏰ Acting on urgent emails immediately and deleting them after handling ensures that the email inbox remains task-oriented and not a storage for historical records.
- 🔄 Regularly reviewing and archiving or deleting old emails is encouraged to keep the inbox manageable and to avoid digital hoarding.
- 🔄 For those with an overwhelming number of emails, a mass deletion of old emails is suggested, with the reassurance that very few will actually be needed later.
Q & A
What is the speaker's preference for communication over email?
-The speaker prefers instant messaging over email, as they grew up in a generation where it was the primary mode of contact.
What is the main philosophy the speaker adopts for handling work and project email?
-The speaker views email as a task cue and treats each email as a to-do list item assigned by someone else, aiming for Inbox zero to signify all tasks are completed or rejected.
How does the speaker suggest treating incoming emails?
-The speaker treats emails like a stack, where the newest email is addressed first, often leading to older emails becoming irrelevant and thus not needing action.
Why does the speaker recommend separating KDE and non-KDE emails?
-Separating emails helps to avoid mixing personal and work life, making it easier to switch off the work part of the brain when not working.
What is the first point the speaker makes about using an email client app?
-Using a desktop email client is recommended over web-based clients for better management of multiple accounts, faster access, and more features.
What is the benefit of automatic categorization of emails as described by the speaker?
-Automatic categorization helps in efficiently sorting emails into different categories or folders based on predefined rules, making it easier to manage and respond to them.
How does the speaker handle urgent emails?
-The speaker actions urgent emails by either replying to them or opening the linked content in a browser and then deleting the email after the task is completed.
What is the speaker's approach to dealing with merge request and bug report emails?
-The speaker opens the linked content in the email, prepares to do the actual work, and then deletes the email if no further action is needed.
How does the speaker suggest spending time after going through urgent emails and work-related emails?
-The speaker advises spending time on proactive tasks such as fixing bugs, participating in discussions, and helping others on forums or discussion boards.
What is the speaker's advice for dealing with a large backlog of emails?
-The speaker suggests selecting all and deleting old emails, as they are likely no longer relevant or necessary, and to unsubscribe from unnecessary subscriptions to reduce incoming emails.
Outlines
📧 Email Management Philosophy
The speaker expresses a preference for instant messaging over email, reflecting on the generational shift in communication methods. They acknowledge the necessity of email and introduce Nate Graham's approach to email management. The speaker advocates for a system where emails are treated as tasks, aiming for 'Inbox Zero' by promptly addressing or dismissing them. They also stress the importance of separating work and personal emails and suggest using a dedicated email client for better organization and control over email rules.
🔧 Setting Up Email Client and Rules
The speaker emphasizes the benefits of using a desktop email client like Thunderbird over web-based clients for managing multiple accounts and utilizing features like mail rules. They detail how to set up automatic categorization using color-coded tags or folders to streamline the email sorting process. The speaker also demonstrates how to create filters for automated emails, such as notifications from platforms like YouTube or GitHub, to improve email management efficiency.
📉 Categorizing and Acting on Emails
The speaker outlines a strategy for manually categorizing emails from actual people, marking them as urgent or personal, and promptly deleting those that do not require a response. They stress the importance of acting on urgent emails by replying or opening relevant links and then deleting the emails to maintain an organized inbox. The speaker also discusses how to handle merge request and bug report emails, suggesting that once the linked tasks are addressed, the emails can be deleted.
🗑️ Dealing with Overwhelming Email Volume
The speaker addresses the fear of deleting emails and suggests archiving them as a compromise. They encourage tackling the issue of a large backlog of emails by selecting all and deleting, arguing that old notifications and conversations are typically not valuable. The speaker advises unsubscribing from unnecessary subscriptions and using message filters to manage the influx of emails. They conclude by acknowledging the need for a personal email management system, even if it's not perfect, and invite viewers to share their thoughts and engage with the content.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Instant Messaging
💡Email Management
💡Inbox Zero
💡Email Client
💡Message Filters
💡Task Categorization
💡Archival System
💡Digital Hoarding
💡Unsubscribe
💡Bug Triages
Highlights
Preference for instant messaging over email due to growing up in a generation where it's the primary mode of communication.
Desire for instant messaging platforms to be as interoperable as email, using a common protocol.
Email management strategy inspired by Nate Graham of the KDE project, focusing on efficiency.
Concept of 'Inbox zero' as a goal for email management, symbolizing all tasks are completed or addressed.
Treating email like a stack, prioritizing the newest messages to be addressed first.
Separating work and personal emails to maintain a clear boundary and work-life balance.
Advocating for the use of email client applications over web-based clients for better account management and features.
Use of email client rules to automatically categorize and tag emails, streamlining the sorting process.
Tagging system in email clients allows for visual organization and quick identification of email types.
Immediate deletion of emails that do not require a response, promoting a clean inbox.
Urgent emails are addressed first, with a focus on immediate action to clear the inbox.
Actionable steps for merge request and bug report emails, ensuring they are not just read but acted upon.
Dedicated time for actual work after email triage, focusing on tasks rather than reactive email management.
Proactive approach to bug triaging and issue handling, making the most of the day's work hours.
Dealing with less urgent emails at the end of the day, maintaining a balance between immediate and deferred tasks.
Overcoming the fear of deleting emails by archiving them for potential future reference.
Advice for dealing with a backlog of emails: select all and delete, with confidence that they are not needed.
Unsubscribing from unnecessary email sources to reduce inbox clutter and focus on relevant communications.
Encouragement to develop a personal email management system that works better than the one described.
Transcripts
I genuinely hate dealing with email if I
never had to do so for the rest of my
life it would be at least just a couple
of percent better I grew up in a
generation where instant messaging is
the way you would get in contact with
people and I'm just used to it I like it
more yes I know how to use email I just
would prefer not to do it and it would
be nice if we got to a point where
instant messaging was as open as what we
had with email where you could just use
anything and all of the things just
magically work together because it was
all underneath using the same protocol
but I digress email is here to
stay and you have to learn to deal with
it now the amount of emails that I deal
with is nothing compared to someone like
Nate Graham of the KDE project and
recently put out a very interesting
piece called how I manage my KD
email how I manage my email is I don't
basically I deal with things as I deal
with them but I hope that by going
through this post all of you can get at
least a bit of inspiration on how you
could maybe do things a little bit
better even if you don't copy everything
from his system maybe there are things
that you actually could do because look
I sure as hell need a better system
everything I do starts with the
philosophy that works work and project
email is a task cue therefore an email
is a to-do list item someone else has
assigned me better get that stuff done
or rejected as soon as possible so I can
move onto the stuff I want to do this
means my target is Inbox zero achieving
it means I got all my task done like
everyone I don't always achieve it but
zero is the goal how do I work towards
it now in my case I don't treat it like
a queue I treat it like a stack so the
newest thing that's been added is the
first thing that gets popped off this
often means I don't end up dealing with
a lot of things because by the time I
get around to dealing with it it's very
old and very out of date and um doesn't
need anything done anymore I am
certainly not the only one that has like
5-year-old emails that I never bothered
to look at when at the time I probably
should
have but now it's 5 years later and I
don't even remember why the email was
sent to me Point number zero separate
KDE and non-kd emails for most other
people this would be a home email and a
work email do not mix them together
don't use the same account for
everything because it is going to be an
absolute nightmare to sort through also
when you're not at work you want better
turn the work part of your brain off and
not still keep looking at all of this
work stuff this is one of the few things
I at least try to do my GitHub is not on
a separate email it probably should be
but I do have a separate email for my
channel and then all of the other Home
nonsense as well I actually have two
separate emails for the home nonsense
because it got bad enough with me not
sorting through things so I a whole
another one as well again I don't have a
system but bare minimum use separate
emails for doing separate things Point
number one use an email client app it's
perfectly fine if you want to go sign up
for something like Gmail or your ISP has
an email provider or anything else like
that but don't go and use the web-based
client first problem if you have
multiple accounts you're probably going
to go insane the second problem is it's
usually slow it's usually lacking useful
features and has poor keyboard
navigation Gmail is probably the best
when it comes to multiac account
workflows assuming every single email
account you have is on Gmail if you have
one that's on Yahoo one that's on
Hotmail cuz you made it 15 years ago you
have an AOL account I don't know you
have something else proton you just
cannot manage it with any of the typical
web-based clients there are of course
exceptions when the client is made as a
generic email client but for the most
part when you are dealing with Webmail
it is made specifically for that
provider currently Nate is using
Thunderbird I do the same but he is
investigating moving to KD's kmail
regardless it has to be a desktop email
client that offers mail rules pretty
much much any sensible email client is
going to offer this if you find one that
is very minimal very stripped down it's
possible they are not there but just go
and use Thunderbird whilst I still don't
like using email switching to
Thunderbird away from these Webmail
clients made my life so much better I
would have my University email I would
have my Gmail account maybe I'd still
have a Hotmail account I was paying
attention to on very rare occasions and
having to go from site to site to site
just made it insufferable having to like
swap accounts I'm logged into if I have
multiple accounts on a service just made
it insufferable having it in
Thunderbird yes there's a lot of
information on the screen but I can
actually see all of it at once even if
you only have a single email account an
email client is likely still going to be
a benefit because it's probably going to
be quicker than loading up whatever
website you have to go to points0 and
one are things that every single person
should be doing if you are not doing
these you are doing yourself a
disservice before watching anything else
at least bare minimum use an email
client app now we get into Nate's actual
workflow Point number two automatic
categorization I can figure my email
client with male rules to automatically
tag emails with colored labels according
to what they are and then mark them as
red so in this case there are things
like KD merge request bug report from KD
bugzilla bug report from QT all of these
are automated messages that are going to
have a very very set format so it's very
easy to set up a rule that says or in
the case of Thunderbird they're called
message filters that says if it sees
this specific string of characters it is
this kind of email or if it comes from a
C email address it is this kind of email
just go and do this certain operation to
it in this case he's using the tagging
system built into Thunderbird where tags
each have their own defined color so you
can very easily indicate what each of
these email types are supposed to be
when I get a new kind of automated email
that didn't automatically receive a
color label I adjust the rules to match
that new email so it gets categorized in
the future too some people might prefer
doing folders instead of color color
labels I can understand why Nate prefers
doing labels here because he is treating
it like a queue if you have it in
different folders you're going to do
each folder one by one in Nate's case
though he wants to address things in the
order that they come in and doing it in
this way makes a lot more sense for him
W Nate's filters are set up for a KD use
case this also applies to other
automatic cases as well let's say you're
in a well struct mailing list you're in
a bunch of forums you're in U some
GitHub and gitlab repos all of these are
going to have a structure with how the
emails are laid out and there's probably
going to be something in the email that
you can say okay this means it is this
kind of email Now setting up these rules
is pretty straightforward here we have
the email account attached to my gaming
YouTube account where the only things
that come in are basically just
notifications of that channel going live
and notifications of new comments so
basically all just automated emails so
one thing we can do is either clicking
on the from or the Two element in the
email and then there'll be a thing
saying create filter from the other way
we can do this is going up to the tools
here and if we click on message filters
this will bring up the message filter
window from here we can click on new and
this brings up the actual prompt to make
a new filter so in this case let's say
we want it to be on the subject contains
and then new comment on so new
comment on and then we can choose what
action to do on that message in this
case I'm going to go and just delete
those messages click okay and now we can
do a run and
presumably all of those
comments are now gone in Nate's case
though what he was doing and probably in
most of your cases what's going to make
sense is instead doing something like
tag message and you can add additional
actions like let's say you want to tag
it and then move the message or mark it
as red this is what Nate is doing in his
case now depending on how you got
Thunderbird laid out where tag is going
to be is going to be a little bit
different but if we go and right click
on a message click on tag here from here
we can go and select manage tags and
make any new tags we want to make make
so in my case I don't really have that
many of them I think some of these are
the default but once you have all of the
tags that you want then they can be used
in any of the context where tags make
sense one of those context being manual
categorization so not every single email
is an automated email from one of the
platforms that Nate deals with when I
first open my email client in the
morning everything will be categorized
except 5 to 15 emails sent by actual
people to see just the these I'll filter
the inbox by unread status since all
autoc categorized colored emails got
automatically marked as red then it's
time to figure out what to do with them
for anything that needs a response or
action today I mark it as Urgent by
hitting the one key for anything that
needs a personal response in the next
few days I hit nine to tag it as
personal and it becomes green and so on
any emails that don't need a response
get immediately deleted I never miss
them it's fast and painless put those
emails out of their misery I am
genuinely terrible at getting back to
people over email as I said before there
are some cases where I just leave an
email for multiple years and it just
sits there unanswered I probably should
have answered it but I just forgot to
point number four action all the Urgent
emails again
that means me actually doing something
with the email urgent means urgent first
I'll go through these one at a time and
action them somehow this means one of
the following if it's from a person
write a reply and then delete the email
if it's from an automated system open
the link to the thing it's about in a
web browser and then delete the email
the email always ends up deleted for
People Like Us emails are not historical
records They are tasks do you need to
remember what T she performed 8 years
ago on Tuesday May 11th of course not
don't be a digital hoarder delete your
emails you won't miss them I just had a
look and I can't show you because there
was some personal information in them I
do have emails going back to 2019 when I
said 5 years I was saying that as a joke
it's actually not a joke points number
five and six are basically the same
thing action all merge request emails
and action all bug report emails so go
into the email open up the link see
where it sends you and just get
everything ready to do the actual work
once it is open delete the email if you
don't need to do anything with the bug
report or the merge request just delete
email don't even bother going any
further with it you've done the task
it's already completed in a more General
sense if you're involved in mailing list
you're involved in gitlab issues and
GitHub issues and all of the work there
basically just check the thing that is
linked in the email if you need to do
something with it you'll do something
with it in a moment if not get rid of it
it doesn't need to be there any longer
finally number seven do actual work at
this point Nate has spent anywhere from
15 to 40 minutes going through his email
seeing what emails he's been sent
whether he has to do anything with them
or not replying to the really urgent
emails just by themselves but hasn't
dealt with any of the bug reports or
merge requests yet now it's time to
actually go through that work for the
next couple of hours going through the
tabs in his browser from left to right
first reviewing merge request then
handling the relevant bug reports
closing reopening replying to comments
changing metadata marking his duplicate
ceasing others during this step I'll
also triage the Day's new bug reports
sometimes checking the email client
again do doing the same process if there
is some new task in there go and open it
in a tab get rid of the email after all
of these Tabs are closed I have some
time to be proactive instead of reactive
usually this amounts to 0 to 120 minutes
a day during working hours I try to
spend this time on fixing small bugs I
found throughout the day opening and
participating in discussion topics about
important matters working on the K human
interface guidelines and sometimes
helping people out on discuss. k.org and
the KD Reddit if there is anybody out
there that tells you that bug triaging
is not a difficult and timec consuming
role they are lying to you because
there's a reason why a lot of repos have
a thousand open issues nobody really
wants to deal with them then at the end
of the day go through those emails that
were manually categorized that weren't
that important and if you're not too
tired reply to them today but if it
doesn't really matter they can wait for
another day if they've sat there for too
long mark them as urgent now it is time
to deal with them now this is my problem
deleting emails is too scary what if I
need them in the
future you won't but if that's too scary
or painful set up your email account or
client app to Archive deleted messages
in permanent storage rather than truly
deleting them just keep in mind you'll
eventually run out of storage space and
have to deal with that problem in the
future just buy more drives just have a
archival system set up entirely for your
email and you never have to deal with it
once it happens consider it an
opportunity to reconsider asking
yourself how many emails you actually
did need to dig out of Cold Storage I'm
guessing the number will be very low
maybe even zero I can think
of maybe one or two cases where I
actually needed to do so but it just
made a lot more sense to download the
content of the email and store it in a
separate system what do I do about all
those old emails in my inbox there are
too many I'll never get through them if
you're one of those people who has
50,000 emails in your inbox mine's not
that bad but combined probably close to
30,000 across all of them select all and
delete you won't miss any of them
seriously all of them every single one
right
now just do it how do I know this is
fine old notifications about things like
bug reports or merge requests are
worthless because they already happened
delete old mail this conversations long
since dried up or got action without
your input delete old at the time urgent
emails from important people are no
longer relevant because the people who
sent them long ago concluded you're
unreliable and decided to not contact
you again because that's what happens
when you let emails pile up you're being
rude to all the people whose messages
you've ignored feel sad resolve to do
better then
delete now maybe that's
cold but look he's probably correct now
to be fair there are some people I'd
prefer don't contact me again because I
don't want to deal with their email so
those people I'm probably still going to
ignore but if there are people you
actually want to keep in contact with
companies you're trying to work with
maybe replying is a good idea this is
another problem I have on my more
personal emails I just get too much
email it's impossible to keep up no
matter what I do you need to unsubscribe
from some things maybe a lot of things
longtime contributors to any project
will have accumulated years of
subscriptions to sources of email s that
are no longer relevant prune them this
may trigger fear of missing out
recognize that and fight against it you
can almost always reduce your email load
by unsubscribing from
stuff there's some cases where that may
not actually
work in those
cases message filters do you have a
system for dealing with email
probably whatever it is is going to be
better than mine I know I need to be
better and look maybe I should Implement
some of the stuff that Nate actually
brought up here and things will be at
least a bit nicer it's going to take a
bit of effort to get things done the
first time but once everything is
automatically being
categorized it's probably just going to
be nicer isn't
it I should do it but let me know your
thoughts down below if you like the
video go like the video and if you
really like the video and you want to
become one of these amazing people over
here check out the patreon scribber
Linked In the description down below
that's going to be it for me
and don't send me an email
[Music]
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something
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