Comments on: Open Thread: Email – Are You a Filer or a Finder?

By: Barbara Saunders

Barbara Saunders — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:37:46 +0000

Finder! No question. A lot of my communications and work/client relationships don’t fall into discrete categories.

By: Email - Finder or Filer? « Brendan’s Blog

Email - Finder or Filer? « Brendan’s Blog — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:44:26 +0000

[...] – Finder or Filer? I just read a great blog post here that speaks to a transition I recently made [...]

By: thisismyurl

thisismyurl — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:23:15 +0000

Helllo, my name is Christopher and I’m a filer. I have every email since 1996 stored on my MacBook.

By: Open Thread: Email - Are You a Filer or a Finder?

Open Thread: Email - Are You a Filer or a Finder? — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:08:03 +0000

[...] Open Thread: Email – Are You a Filer or a Finder?webworkerdaily.com/2008/10/17/open-thread-email-are-you-a-fi… by ebenimeli : a few seconds ago [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 08:37:48 +0000

Great post. I am filer/storer and finder. Because of Gmail’s storage capacity I keep all attachments in Gmail rather than downloading. If I want to find I can either go to folder or search. I do both but a big pile of unsorted/unread stuff is not for me. What if you filed something that you knew was important but forgot who it was from etc. A filer will likely find it quicker and a finder possibly not at all.

By: Andrew Flusche

Andrew Flusche — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 05:47:54 +0000

Filers are doomed to failure. There’s just too much email to keep track of the folders and moving everything around. I don’t see why people still try to do this.

Search is the new organization.

By: Sidharth

Sidharth — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 02:32:46 +0000

Gmail makes it damn easy for me. I have this labels and the filters which means that I do not have to label each mail individually. This takes care of the filing. Finding is the real reason that Gmail rocks .

By: DanGTD

DanGTD — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:46:34 +0000

I have the inbox empty, and move all to Archive. Throw it all in a huge pile and just search it later.

By: Pete

Pete — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 12:43:45 +0000

You left off “Email is communication tool, not a storage system,” so I guess I don’t fit into your neat little world.

By: Martijn Engler

Martijn Engler — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:20:13 +0000

Mixed. ;)
I do label stuff , but just with the project name it belongs too. Then, if I’m looking for something I’ll combine search with label.

Something like: “todo list label:projectname” for example. Or if I know the e-mail I’m looking for was one of the last ones sent to me about that particular project, I might dive right in the label.

I’m a GMail (GAFYD) user by the way.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:08:21 +0000

I’m a filer by nature and a finder through enlightenment. I tag everything now.

By: HansD

HansD — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 09:17:41 +0000

I always tend to start as a filer, but in the end I have to admit I’m more of a piler/finder. That’s having to do with the time needed to initially file the stuff, combined with the maintenance it needs.

By: How do you retrieve email?

How do you retrieve email? — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:45:49 +0000

[...] was reading a post over at Web Worker Daily about email. In it, they discuss two types of email users – filers and [...]

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:34:31 +0000

Finder…but until six years ago I was a filer. Then I realized that it’s much easier to slice and dice an inbox than a thousand folders. I still mainly use Outlook but backup everything to Gmail. For almost every Outlook search I sort by name/date and two secs later I have what I need.

For really deep, obscure searches I use Gmail’s search capabilities, as Outlook’s search is just too slow.

By: Ivan V.

Ivan V. — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:47:46 +0000

Neither! Trasher all the way baby!

Well, I’m actually a filer, but not in e-mail. When I receive something that I want to keep, I file it on another place, according to the kind of data, and then delete it from Gmail.

By: Francis Wade

Francis Wade — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:15:56 +0000

This is a very useful post, and it’s the first time I have read anything like this.

To relate this to the idea of an empty inbox, I think the point is that whatever technique one uses, the idea is that new email is separated from old email in some way that prevents confusion.

The enemy here is unsorted email, wherever it may be.

And I am a filer, given my Outlook use. I have Gmail and am gradually understanding what it means to be a finder, but I think the word “finder” does not do the term justice… another word to use might be “non-searcher.” ;-)