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Show HN: Plain Email – An app for one-touch email processing

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Re: Show HN: Plain Email – An app for one-touch email processing

#111

Post by shostack »

krrrh wrote: post #65
jdmichal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm reading it right, "defer" means you actually schedule an appointment in a calendar. I much rather prefer the idea of snoozing (a fixed delay before reappearing) better. If I'm not interested in dealing with something now, then I'm also not really interested in vetting calendar space for it at that exact moment either.

In GTD parlance defer doesn't require a calendar appointment, it just means 'don't do right now'. Basically if a task takes more than 2 minutes to do but you intend to do it at some point, then it should not interrupt processing, but should be moved from an inbox to a 'trusted system' for organizing and tracking tasks. Snoozing works ok, but strict GTD tries to build a discipline of not having items re-appear in the…

Any suggestions for a Gmail user on how to best integrate "Snooze-like" functionality into my workflow?

Re: Show HN: Plain Email – An app for one-touch email processing

#112

Post by galvin »

shostack wrote: post #111
krrrh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In GTD parlance defer doesn't require a calendar appointment, it just means 'don't do right now'. Basically if a task takes more than 2 minutes to do but you intend to do it at some point, then it should not interrupt processing, but should be moved from an inbox to a 'trusted system' for organizing and tracking tasks. Snoozing works ok, but strict GTD tries to build a discipline of not having items re-appear in the…

Any suggestions for a Gmail user on how to best integrate "Snooze-like" functionality into my workflow?

Boomerang (http://www.boomeranggmail.com/) seems okay. I've been using it for a couple of weeks now.

Re: Show HN: Plain Email – An app for one-touch email processing

#113

Post by volaski »

abcampbell wrote: post #85
ignoramous wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

---- Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things. Want to dominate microcomputer software? Start by writing a Basic interpreter for a machine with a few thousand users. Want to make the universal web site? Start by building a site for Harvard undergrads to stalk one another. ... I think the way to use these big ideas is not to try to identify a precise point in the…

Do you think no one has fixed email because the problem is too hard, or because there is a lack of creative/ambitious founders?

I have a project I was at first very excited about but then later paused working on as I discovered more about the email ecosystem. The reason I was excited about it at first was because email is--in theory--decentralized, this part was very attractive to me because I thought this was one potential way to disrupt all existing content silos. However the more I worked on it the more I found out how "centralized" it is when it comes to consumer email. If you take a look around there are only a handful of popular email providers (gmail, yahoo mail, microsoft, etc.) Rest of them are indies. I felt like building a consumer email client (or anything that utilizes consumer email) is as limited as building a twitter client, you're essentially tapping into a big platform. This is why I ran out of steam and put the idea on shelf until I come up with a compelling reason to start working on it again. I wasn't motivated enough.

Re: Show HN: Plain Email – An app for one-touch email processing

#114

Post by seivan »

ignoramous wrote: post #74
Xeoncross wrote: post #18

This assumes an inbox is a type of "project" that needs to be "completed". It's structured on the concept of removing messages from my screen until there is nothing left for me to "do". My inbox is often more of a conversation that I fade in and out of. Sometimes it resembles a facebook feed. Granted, I'm not a type A personality, but not all email is has to be "done" anymore than all reading books need to be "done".…

---- Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things. Want to dominate microcomputer software? Start by writing a Basic interpreter for a machine with a few thousand users. Want to make the universal web site? Start by building a site for Harvard undergrads to stalk one another. ... I think the way to use these big ideas is not to try to identify a precise point in the…

I actually like that since I've always thought like that, it's nice to see in reading (and better explained). However it has its downside, it's easy to fall into pitfalls where you can't decide which path to take. As opposite of having a vision, basically means you know where to go and what to do. I am constantly suffering from making decisions that seem important and of similar value.

Re: Show HN: Plain Email – An app for one-touch email processing

#116

Post by marcosdumay »

ignoramous wrote: post #74
Xeoncross wrote: post #18

This assumes an inbox is a type of "project" that needs to be "completed". It's structured on the concept of removing messages from my screen until there is nothing left for me to "do". My inbox is often more of a conversation that I fade in and out of. Sometimes it resembles a facebook feed. Granted, I'm not a type A personality, but not all email is has to be "done" anymore than all reading books need to be "done".…

---- Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things. Want to dominate microcomputer software? Start by writing a Basic interpreter for a machine with a few thousand users. Want to make the universal web site? Start by building a site for Harvard undergrads to stalk one another. ... I think the way to use these big ideas is not to try to identify a precise point in the…

Like Columbus, right.

Isn't that funny that even the metaphor we use for such kind of stuff is some yahoo that got the radius of Earth wrong and survived just by accident?

Re: Show HN: Plain Email – An app for one-touch email processing

#117

Post by erikb »

The days of open source propaganda are long gone, at least for me. But this sounds like a thing that should be put into open source, in a way that not just the own gui can use it but that other email client creators can integrate it as well (i.e. a library). We've seen so many email clients come and go, having a single app do that is not enough to stay in the game.

Re: Show HN: Plain Email – An app for one-touch email processing

#118

Post by k2enemy »

semerda wrote: post #59

Is email really broken or are people looking for things to change? Reason I ask is because I see this "let's fix email" so often, peeps build something new then it either gets acquired & killed or goes no where. What if email isn't broken. Instead email as we think we see it is merely a feed with or without action and its up to us to manage it. PlainEmail appears like an attempt of changing our habits of reading a fe…

I love email, but I'm still not really in love with any of the email clients I've used. I'd really like something with high information density ([0] for example) and fast keyboard shortcuts, but that has some of the soft edges that come with a gui client, such as drag and drop attachments and displaying images inline. I think astroid [1] is heading there but isn't widely supported and doesn't play nice with syncing changes back to a standard mailstore.

[0] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/schmeisers/sup-colors-redt...

[1] https://github.com/gauteh/astroid

Re: Show HN: Plain Email – An app for one-touch email processing

#120

Post by hueving »

marcosdumay wrote: post #116
ignoramous wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

---- Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things. Want to dominate microcomputer software? Start by writing a Basic interpreter for a machine with a few thousand users. Want to make the universal web site? Start by building a site for Harvard undergrads to stalk one another. ... I think the way to use these big ideas is not to try to identify a precise point in the…

Like Columbus, right. Isn't that funny that even the metaphor we use for such kind of stuff is some yahoo that got the radius of Earth wrong and survived just by accident?

That's not a flaw in the metaphor. The whole point is that your plans are likely wrong and that the riches go to the ones who execute rather than the ones that spend all of their time on a perfect plan.
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