Notes from a Messy Desk

OK, I've already linked to it on my del.icio.us, but I think this deserves a proper post. MailTags is a plugin for Mac OS X 10.4's Mail.app which allows you to add extra metadata to messages. I can tag messages with a project, a priority, a due date and add extra comments. It's like being able to stick post-it notes to your email! I leave everything that I've still to deal with in my Inbox (not the GTD way, but I haven't read the book anyway!), but it gets no further information than ooh, look, you still have to do something about me! So now I can. All the messages that are still in my inbox (only 20 of them since I just cleaned it out at the same time) now have an action, a project they're related to and a due date. Some even have a priority.

But that's not all. OK, so everything in my inbox has been tagged. So, how does one make use of these tags? Simple. Smart Mailboxes. I've created a smart mailbox called 'MailManager UI work' which contains all the messages tagged with the 'MailManager UI' project. It's just an added bonus for searching through all the piles of email I have archived away, trying to find the relevant bit of information. I want messages about our wedding who's next action is due in less than 2 days? Got a smart mailbox for that too.

It's going to take a while to populate these smart mailboxes, since most of the existing 9,942 messages in my 'archive' mailbox don't have this meta data, but I think MailTags is going to become the next Quicksilver in my Mac OS X lifestyle.