When you get emails and process them, do you snooze emails or send them to your todo app?

Currently trying to figure out if I should just use my email app (Spark) to snooze emails or send the email to Omnifocus with a defered or due date and then archive the email in my inbox.

I don’t use omnifocus, but Spark has an extension that works with my task manager. If an email is just something that I need to visually see later as a reminder, I’ll snooze it. If it contains links or other “action items” I’ll send it over to my task manager.

2 Likes

The best way to handle I’ve found is to drag and drop out of mail and into Omnifocus so the message URL appears in the notes, then archive the message so it’s out of your inbox.

Probably easier with Spark if they have their own URL, but only if you use it everywhere.

1 Like

Sending to Things (in my case) is too much work for me.

If I know it’s a work issue that I need to get done on a specific date I’ll snooze it in Airmail.
If it’s just a loose tie, which I need to work on later, I’ll archive and star it. So I can quickly find it in my “starred” smart-inbox, which spans all my mail accounts.

Once per month I’ll go through those mails and de-star once that magically solved themselves.

I use a Keyboard Maestro with a shortcut in Mail to send it to my Todo App. Keyboard Maestro appends “today” to it so I can see it and do something with it.

1 Like

I actually use Spark everywhere! It’s annoying as it puts the text of the email in the Omnifocus note field but just a minor inconvenience.

2 Likes

I always send e-Mails to todoist, if I need to process them later. I have to use a windows notebook for work and i have to use outlook on it, but i also use my iPad and iPhone often. Todoist works on all of my devices.

I’m using OF and Airmail and I’ve never once hit Snooze. If I need to act on it in any way other than replying, it goes into OF. If I need to reply, it sits in my inbox until I reply to it. If I realize I’ve missed replying to it before I meant to and I can’t reply to it at that second, I make an OF task to reply to it. I’ve made basically no use of the Airmail special folders.

When I am going through my emails, I use RAT to decide what to do with them.

  1. Reference - If it contains information that I may use at a later date, I archive them by forwarding them to Evernote (might be DEVONthink soon as I am currently trying it out).
  2. Action - If it contains something for me to do, I forward it to my OmniFocus inbox via my unique email address (provided by the Omni Group).
  3. Trash - Delete the email if it is irrelevant or just plain spam.

Hope this helps a bit.

2 Likes

I do both. For important but later emails, I’ll put them in OmniFocus. For less important, but later emails, I’ll defer them. There is a certain amount of overhead with putting email into your task manager but sometimes that’s appropriate anyway …at least for me.

3 Likes

Personally I flag them within mail, I don’t move them to my to do app.

I use the newest version of Spark, and it gives the option to send “email” or “link” to OmniFocus. I use “email” because at the bottom, it has a link to the email in Spark via URL. You could just use “link” and the notes field in OmniFocus won’t have the text.

I also use the RAT method mentioned in this thread. I snooze emails EVERY once in a while. If it needs attention, it goes to OmniFocus for the most part. I think I’ve snoozed 2 or 3 emails ever.

1 Like

I snooze many emails using Spark. I wonder when apples mail will add this feature which every mail program has had for years. Some emails really really snoozing while most do not. It’s nice to get those emails out of your inbox and have them come back when needed. Spark has also added a feature to send emails directly into Omnifocus with the ability to date and tag them.

I snooze personal emails that come in during my work day - I want to read them but I don’t need the distraction at work, so I snooze them till evening. The swipe options on iOS make this so fast, it barely takes any time to process them.

This is a great approach to getting to inbox 0. My biggest hangup is in the clunkiness of the reference step. I’m currently using Bear as my notes app, but there are some steps needed in getting an email into reference. I use Airmail and that’ll make a new Bear note with that email linked, but that’s often not the step I need. As my Bear workflows improve (and as I finally get on board with Keyboard Maestro) then I’m sure that it’ll get better, but it’s probably the most friction, and would be regardless of whether I was using DEVONThink, Evernote, Ulysses, or Bear.

actionable

  • Straight into task mgr via Spark

reference

  • reference emails filed

  • Emails with attachments filed in Dropbox

This is my preferred method as well. I am not a fan of snoozing in e-mail. I want to process an e-mail once and never see it again.

How do I find this email address?

@Ben your right it does have the “link”.

The only reason I use Spark for email is to have the link back to the original email. If I send an email to Omnifocus, I will most likely need to reply to that email or send it elsewhere. Having only the text of the email is usually unhelpful for that reason. Very seldom do I receive an email that requires an action for me that doesn’t also require me to follow-up with the sender once it’s done or for more information.

Your personal Omnifocus email address can be obtained at https://manage.sync.omnigroup.com

1 Like

I batch process all my email every morning, bringing it back to inbox zero. To do this I follow Tiago Forte’s method for inbox zero which has been a life changer for me. I triage all email according to a basic formula: if I can respond in under 2 mins respond, reference material goes into Evernote using a keyboard shortcut (I’m using Airmail but works without Spark too), tasks goes to Things, archive, or delete.

3 Likes