[DocMacPS]

Most computer users are DROWNING IN IRRELEVANCE: clinging to triviality, stumbling over garbage to get at the gems they value.
I ask my Mac clients this; "How many phone conversations do you have permanent recordings of?" Answer: 'None'. So then I ask "WHAT makes you think ANY of your emails are so dang important?!? They AREN'T!' You could lose every single email you have, and the world would keep turning. And in a matter of days or weeks, you could be drowning in it all over again. Suprisingly quick.
So that's how I BEGIN to help my customers - Put perspective on the data flotsam clogging our Mac lives. Ask them if they have core, fundamental things in life: Economic security. A warm roof over thier heads. Food on the table. Family and Friends to love. And then it's easy to see just how trivial our email correspondence really is....
So... my BEST advice for clutter? Trash it. And forget it.

[Kelly Turner]

Quote:

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WHAT makes you think ANY of your emails are so dang important?!? They AREN'T!' You could lose every single email you have, and the world would keep turning. And in a matter of days or weeks, you could be drowning in it all over again.

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My life might not end if I lost all of my e-mail, but my job certainly would be a lot more difficult. A sizeable portion of my job involves communicating with people through e-mail. And I regularly need to reach back months (sometimes even years) to track down a name, conversation, or other piece of information from my e-mail.
Unless its spam, a sales notice, or something generic like that (or something that could be used against you in court), I don't see the value in deleting mail--so long as your hard drive has enough room. You never know when you'll need to go back and see what was said.

[Kelly Turner]

By the way, a few people have e-mailed me separately with their thoughts on controlling clutter. Roger Purves wrote to tell me what features he'd find particularly useful in an e-mail program. He writes:

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"I keep all my email in the inbox. I am not willing to sort anything, and I like to keep a lot of emails around for a long time. All I want from an email program is help in thinning my email. I am looking for something like the following:
The email program would allow me to look at the complete text of the all the emails in the inbox in one long scrolling view--exactly like the view this site gives of the responses to your call for comments. Close to each email would be three buttons: delete, next, pause/resume
Then to thin, I could scroll down manually through the text of the emails, glancing at each and deciding to delete it or not. (I often have to check through to the end of an email to decide whether to keep it longer or delete it.) If I want to delete an email, I press the delete button. If an email is long, and I want to keep it, I press the next button to jump down to the next email. (It would take some care to program this jump so it isn't visually jarring.)
It might be helpful of the program to offer an alternative to manually scrolling down, some sort of automatic scrolling at a speed I could choose. That's the reason for the pause/resume button.
I have been talking here about thinning emails. I would like to be able to thin folders of documents on my desktop in the same way. Take, for example, a folder of InDesign documents. I want to be able to look all of these in one long scrolling view so that I could thin them quickly as I have for email.
Finally, thinning for me is not just a matter of getting rid of documents. I'd like to be reminded of issues and review documents at the same time as I am doing the thinning."

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[Kelly Turner]

Larry Martin, an architectural project manager, offers this advice:

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"My system is also not perfect (pretty close though), but it does work for me. I use Microsoft Entourage for its organizing tools.
My email organization is not for the faint of heart and works well for the obsessive compulsive in all of us. But, if I did not do what I do, my work would simply not get done in a timely manner. In addition, our work needs to be maintained in case of issues that could come up years after a project is complete. The important thing is to set up the parameters a little at a time. Don't get overwhelmed by doing everything at once and fine tune it as you go.
As an architectural project manager, I work on multiple long term projects simultaneously and use my email as a way to manage my todo's. Most messages are a directive of some type, and the task may take five minutes or five weeks to complete. So, I treat my Inbox as a todo list. If it is in there, then I need to complete that task. I also need to archive each project when it is complete in order to maintain the stability of the Entourage database.
For each major project, I create an inbox folder under the Entourage Inbox. At the top level, I also have project folders that I file stuff in after it is complete. That is the same file that will get archived later. I use Categories to classify the people in my address book and I always add people to my address book. All of my email messages that I send have a subject line that starts with an unique abbreviation of a project name. For instance, a project for MacWorld Office Renovation Might be "MWOR:" That is easy to remember and not a collection of letters that are likely to get repeated in a subject line.
All of these things I do is to set up rules. Rules for receiving and rules for sending. When I send mail, I have the rules look for the subject line and automatically file The MWOR mail in the MWOR folder for me. When mail is coming in, anything that has MWOR in the subject line will automatically go to the MWOR Inbox. Using that system for all the big projects automates much of my work. Now the Inbox just has the stragglers or small projects that I manage differently. I also use categories to some extent to color code projects and help me with the sorting that does not get picked up by the rules.
The other thing I do, is never (ever) leave a message unread. If it is unread, than it is not done. I have a Personal Inbox for personal stuff that all my personal stuff automatically goes to. That way, I don't need to confuse it with work related stuff.
I also try to remove enclosures and store them in the project directory on our servers for proper backup. No one likes to rebuild the MS Entourage database and find missing email.
That is the simple explanation. Hope that helps shed some light on how someone in a different industry might use their email organization as a tool to get work done in a timely manner."

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Thanks Larry!

[msadesign]

I struggled with this for many years. Here's a story:
Recently, I made a playlist in iTunes for every album in my collection. This became very onerous as there are 30k+ tracks, and it started to slow down my enjoyment of my music, so I looked for some help at the Apple discussion forums. One bright individual asked me why I was doing this since iTunes has built-in ways to handle the tracks, albums, and music so it was pretty much a waste of time. I had no answer for this question- I couldn't even think of a smart-alecky answer- or some other cleaver riposte! Reason: he's right.
So too with Mail, in my view. Modern computers are so fast, and storage is so huge! searching is simply trivial for OSX.
Now, I leave everything in the In Box that might ever be useful. I trash the spam, of course [using the excellent SpamSieve], but other than that, who cares if there are 50,000 emails? [or, in the future, 10 million, I imagine]. I have a Smart Folder that shows unread email and that's about the only place I go anymore. And while I don't get Kelly's volume, I do get about 700 a week that are important. I admire Kelly's color scheme, but I just don't have the patience to maintain such a system. And that's the key to any good system, isn't it?
So why not just let the system take care of stuff? Heck, doesn't Steve know best? :-) [and lest anyone get all smarmy on me, all I mean is this: don't we admire the way our Macs just 'work'? well, let 'em work!

[dominiquejames]

I just checked my Mail Inbox. Total - 39,368 messages. Unread - 29,584 messages.
My Mail manages 15 POP and IMAP email addresses including a couple of dot Mac accounts. I've setup 3 Macs in sync with my emails (MacPro, PB, MBP). I use color-coding, mesage threading, and the search function to manage all emails. I also keep it in "training". So far, the system is working for me.

[facelessentity]

sounds like i've got one of the more psychotic email sorting systems around. i'm one of <i>those people</i> who use MailTags and MailActOn. in the spirit of GTD: each email that comes in is either trashed, or tagged with whatever project it happens to be about. then if it's an email that i have to actually do something about, i try to reply to it straight away if it's just a minor request for information, or something i can make a decision about there and then. but if it's something i need to do, or something i need more information about before replying, i tag it with "action required" and colour it red. if it's an email containing info that'll be useful in future, it's tagged "KIV" and archived in a folder. if i've replied to something and it needs following up, it's tagged "follow up" and coloured yellow. smart folders are invaluable in this too.
yup. now what's strange is that my obsession with neatness and organisation in my inbox doesn't extend to my room.

[CBoyd]

I create folders for any email important enough to keep and file stuff immediately after reading. If it's important, I try to deal with it right away, and then file it. If I think I can get to it later in the day, I'll leave it in my inbox but only as a temporary reminder until I deal with it, then I file it. If it's important but I can't address it that day, I mark it as flagged and file it. I have a smart mailbox that shows me all my flagged email from all folders that I can check out once in a while to make sure I've responded to those important long-term issues.
Occasionally I get stuff that I'm interested in reading (like Macworld Newsletters) but don't need to keep long-term and don't have time to read yet. I used to have that stuff go right into a smart mailbox created just for the purpose, but it was too easy to ignore that way. Now I'll leave that in my inbox for awhile until I have a moment to check it out . . . if it's still in there a few weeks later and I still haven't read it, I just trash it regardless. If it wasn't important enough to read in those few weeks, I probably don't need it.
I never leave stuff in my sent box either -- if it's important enough to keep, it's important enough to find or create a folder for it. That way all threads are together in the same folder, makes for easy tracking.
This method helps in backing up as well -- I create archive backups of certain clients' data -- when all email relative to that client is in one place, I can easily archive that folder along with the rest of the data, separate from all my other mail.
A word of warning -- my boss had tens of thousands of emails in his Apple Mail inbox and the mailbox got corrupted and he couldn't read even emails he'd had for months, apparently (according to people on the Apple forum) due to the massive number of email in there, and he lost a good chunk of it -- fortunately he had an outdated backup that helped recover all but the last six months, but it was a bad scene. If all your eggs are in one basket and you lose that basket you're toast. And toast with no eggs is not nearly as good.

[digidan]

Hello!
Well, I don't have anywhere near that many emails! I aggressively clean out old emails once they get to be about 3 months old (that's about 700 emails, not including spam!). Most of them are mass-mailings by my school and professors, some from friends, and a couple of emailed invoices for online orders. I print the invoices, trash any email that's no longer relevant, and so on. My inbox now? 53 messages!
Most of my clutter comes in the form of media. My iTunes is a mess - I have 4000+ songs, and often rely on search to find one that I want. Fortunately, I've made dozens of playlists containing my favorite songs, so I don't access the library very much. As such, I'm trying to (slowly) clear out the old songs. My approach is pretty simple: Open the library, and organize music by artist. Then, go through one-by-one. For many artists, I know I want everything I have - so that clears about 1500 songs. But there are many that are alone - the only one by that artist. As it turns out, these are usually iTunes freebies, etc. I also find the songs that I don't listen to - that is, if it has no play count, and after listening again I don't think it'd listen to it, into the trash it goes! See, my main criteria is "Will I ever really listen to this, or is it just there for the sake of being there? I've eliminated 200 songs (couple of gig!) this way - and I'm only down to "E"!
Of course, with many of the songs in particular, I either don't have the discs with me (400 miles away), or the freebies are no longer free! What I've done is to create a folder on an external drive called "iTunes Removed". Here, I dump a copy of songs that I've deleted from my internal. Once I finish my purge, I'll burn it to a DVD and clear it off the external.
I do the same with iPhoto. I usually shoot with bracketing on, as with my point-shoot camera, I'm never quite sure of the best exposure. Immediately after importing, I'll clear out the bad exposures first, then go through the roll to pick out the very best images. Out of a 100 image roll, I'll eliminate about 80! The key is to do this AS you import the images.
One other tip that everyone can use - keep your desktop clear! My method? I have an "unfiled" folder on the desktop. Rather than dropping things directly onto the desktop, i drop them into there, then sort later. In addition, because you can view it in list view, it's easier to find items than looking at icons. (Yes, I realize that you can click "Desktop" on finder window sidebars). This way, I can see my beautiful Hubble Space Telescope desktops images! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
So, in summary, think about the "Clean Sweep" (show on TLC) method - just keep on top of the clutter, agressively clear out old unusued data, backing it up to DVD if neccessary, and keep the clutter off your desktop - trust me, it keeps stress down! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
-Dan

[itasara]

I have 6 email boxes all designated for different purposes. I swear I get at least 500 to 600 emails a day including spam, maybe even more. It's as much a nightmare on my computer as is my household and home office organization. I use mail.app to separate items in << on my mac folder;>> for example catalogues, online stores, google alerts, health items, religious items, online receipts, recipes, cerain listserves. Those items are automatically sent to my offline mail.app folders. Other emails from listserves, ads, personal mail stay in various emails. I download to my desktop and sometimes I straignten out my desk top. Then once in a while I back up my computer as is to an external drive and then some things I know I want to save like pictures, documents, etc. I back up to a second external harddrive. Unfortunately I'm not diligient enough about this. I make occacional backups of my adressbook, banking info, all emails read. Once I do that I am <<supposed to>> lighten up some of space being taken up on my hard drive. I'm always worried that I'll lose my information when my hard drive dies, which has happened. I used to back up stuff on cd's, and I still plan to do that once in a while, especially my documents folder, important pictures, etc. but then I have to keep track of all those cd's!!!I rarely get to backing up in general, but now I find I'm going to have to as my harddrive space is getting low. I don't think there is any one good solution I have found. The problem is clutter on my computer and in my house and I have a really hard time discarding items that I should discard.

[jageez]

Unsaved emails can get lost in a crash or other disaster. If you need 'em, save 'em.
I have to track client correspondence and like to save conversations with family and friends. So I use a two-step system with Mail and BBEdit. Once set up, it's easy to manage and my emails are safe and searchable.
Step 1 consists of creating mailbox folders for any email I want to track. After I read my mail, I sort it into a folder or to trash; sent mail is sorted once a week. Messages in these folders don't usually get corrupted like messages left in the Inbox. They can also be moved to new computers when necessary (user/Library/Mail/Mailboxes).
Step 2 is the backup: monthly for clients, infrequently for others. I deal with attachments when I first read the email, so don't need to bother with them later. I select all the emails in one folder (sorted by date), save the selection as plain text, then organize and search the files with BBEdit. Once saved, I delete the messages from Mail unless I need one as a reminder.
Julie

[Ynot]

Most postings concentrate on emails (you have only 37000!) but the general topic is much more widespread when you consider digital photos (100GB), trial programs, browser bookmarks, and on and on.
My view is that we saved the data for a reason (then), and it is probably not worth out time to throw it out now (we are too busy saving new things!
My solution to having 'clutter' is to just call it something else, (like archive, etc.), then I no longer have a clutter problem.

Now back to collecting ...

[webpuddin]

I like to keep my inbox cleaned out, but I like to keep a lot of email, as others have said - contact info - not permanent enough to go into contact book, but Ill need it for a month or so; To-dos/To respond, on which Im gathering more info, waiting for right time; solicited responses, bids, etc. that are still active, but once decisions are made in a few weeks, will be trashed; etc.
I use Mail ... and I have smart mailboxes for: Today, This week, Everything (pulls from ALL folders-now contains 40,322), and 2 or 3 pet projects /topics.
This combined with search, is pretty quick.
Then ...years ago when computers were new .. .I read an article on-line about how to deal with clutter, files, email etc. The person (dont recall who - that was before the days of being able to easily print/save as a pdf) said hed tried various strategies:
1> file document in application folder ... but bad when updating application or working across apps on a project
2> file all text together, pics together, music together ... but no logic to this ...
3> file topically - Vacation 2007, Hurricane Katrina, Birds, History of Rock n Roll, but even this has its drawbacks. Did I file that under Rock n Roll, under Music- Rock n Roll, History? But wouldnt I rather my History of Rock n Roll be nearer my articles on Jazz than near History of World War II ??
So, the writer concluded , Why sweat this? There is an ARMY of people out there being paid to solve this very problem. Use THEIR template!

Since that time I have used -believe it or not -the most boring thing I recall about school, but the most useful thing Ive found for archiving information:
the Dewey Decimal System !
My Applications folder is subdivided, as well as my Documents folder.
Now all of my Music info is in the 780s, with my other art being among the other 700s. My photos, 770, my T-shirt printing, 740. My music histories, 781.6, my music theory - circle of 5ths, tempered scales, chord constituents, etc, under 780.25, how to play the different instruments 784.193; how to build and repair instruments 784.192; ... then my taxes under 340, my woodworking newsletter 640, my gardening info under 630, and so on. Be as specific or generic as your needs are.
Search features alone do not give you files that my be related but not spelled or titled similarly.
i.e.: Jazz, the Beatles, Rock n Roll, How to build a banjo... I see similar things together an often when Im searching for one thing ... see another close by and go, Oh ...Id forgotten about that; Itll be useful for this project as well...
I do a lot of creative work and need a wide variety of inspirations, thoughts, ideas, images, etc ...never know what will light a spark or be needed to follow through.
I use the system for
-emails
-folders
-applications
-documents
-books (of course), for
-paper files
-closets,
-my workshop
-my office
-packing and moving
-I jokingly told my kids we were Dewey Decimaling their toy-boxes

Currently I am designing and building a new - uh, fairly different kind of home. Im collecting info on everything from faucets, to chain saw repair, staining concrete, gardening, surveying, google earth maps, pond construction, trees identification, woodworking, ...
Kinda dorky ... but the beauty is I only have to use ONE organizational scheme for my entire life, and someone else does the problem solving in that regard.
If you like to chunk stuff and only keep what is current, or your range of interests are relatively narrow, dont bother; but if you like to keep and refer back to stuff.... its the way to go.
For those even MORE serious ... theres the Library of Congress system ... but Id have to buy another hard drive ...

[macnuke]

rule #1
anything you haven't used in a year is trash.
technology will have leapfrogged it.
or google will have a better one easily found.
so use the trash.
liberally. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif