I won’t go through what a tickler file is. There are plenty of resources on the web for that. This article will assume you have read and groked the concept of the tickler.

Introduction

For me, everything comes in via email. Bills, receipts, client communication, everything. That and the fact that I am a nomad with regard to my workspace means a paper tickler file doesn’t make any sense for me. So, I needed to implement an email-based tickler file. I am aware of the Applescript and multi-mailbox tickler file implementation but having to remember to run the Applescript is still more work than I want to do.

My solution uses two Mail plugins (three if you count the bonus tip below) and one smart mailbox. That’s it. Nothing else.

The Ingredients

In order to implement my tickler file setup, you’ll need to grab a copy of DockStar from eCamm network and MailTags. I use the version 2 public beta. It’s very stable, but as usual if your data gets hosed, I’m not responsible, yadda yadda. This setup should work with the prior version that doesn’t have all the IMAPy goodness to it, but do yourself a favor and get v.2 and support Scott’s efforts. He has done a hell of a job with it. Install DockStar and MailTags.

Note: If you want to participate in the bonus tip below and don’t have Act-On installed, go ahead and download it and install when you get MailTags.

The Setup

In Mail > Preferences you will have two new preference areas magically called DockStar and MailTags. Can’t do anything for the tickler in DockStar yet (We’ll come back to it.) but in MailTags, go to the tab called Keywords and Projects. Here is where all of your saved keywords and project names live. Add two keywords to your list indicating something waiting for you in your tickler and something completed from your tickler. I call mine “@incubate” and “@completed”. You’re done with Mail’s Preferences for a bit so you can close out.

Next, you’ll need to set up a Smart Mailbox. I call mine “incubating” but the name doesn’t matter.² In it you will have two conditions: 1) MailTags keyword contains “@incubate” (or whatever you set your keyword to above) and 2) Due date is before 1 days from today. This is the only way to get things that are due today and also include anything that you might not have processed on the day it came up, i.e. something overdue. I keep one folder called Archive on my IMAP server and dump everything in there, so I have my Smart Mailbox set to search in that folder only. I suggest a similar setup.

Now, go back to Preferences and select DockStar’s preferences. Choose a DockStar badge where you want your tickler count to show and set your shape, size, sound, and color preferences to taste. The most important thing here is the Display selection. Set it to “Total Messages.” That’s all for DockStar preferences. Close it out.

Workflow

To put something into your tickler queue, set the due date to the date you would like it to show up and add the @incubate keyword to it. Move it to your Archive folder. That’s it. Now, when you look at your dock icon for Mail (or the fantastic new widget or screensaver eCamm has provided) you will immediately be able to see if you have tickler items awaiting.

Bonus Tip

Not participating? Congratulations! You now have a pretty damn smart tickler file system setup in Mail.app. But, if using Scott Morrison’s other excellent Mail.app plugin Act-On, I have been able to expedite my “incubation” process and make it more automatic, more Quicksilver-esque.

I set up Act-On rules in Mail.app to incubate things for common time periods. so ctrl+1 incubates for one week, ctrl+2 for two weeks, and ctrl+3 for thirty days. (There wasn’t a way to incubate for “one month.”) I also have a ctrl+a rule that I use to incubate for zero days. This is a bit of a hack to say that the item requires immediate action. The condition for these rules is “Every Message” (If that sounds confusing, read up on Scott’s site.) and the actions are similar:

1. Move Message to mailbox Archive
2. [Set MailTags Keyword] [Add] [@incubate]
3. [Adjust Due Date] [appropriate number] days [from today].

I have another rule that I call with ctrl+c for Completed that turns off the due date, removes @incubate and adds @completed. This removes the item from my tickler and gives me a way to look back at completed items. The last thing I would like to see in Act-On is the ability to set the note to include today’s date. That way I could date stamp my completed items.

Conclusion and Use Case

So, there you have it. A set-it-and-forget-it tickler file implementation in Mail.app.

In closing, I’d like to share a real-world example. Last week I bought a wall and car charger on eBay for our SonyEricsson W600i’s. I got two emails from the seller the next day. One said they left feedback for me, and the other said the item had been shipped. I incubated both of those for one week. If after one week I hadn’t received the item, I needed a poke to remember to follow up on it. I also needed a reminder to leave feedback. Since these were two separate actions, I incubated both emails. Yesterday, I got an item in my Tickler reminding me to leave feedback, and today, the shipping notice showed up. I left feedback, and since I had already received the item, so I just hit ctrl+c and it went away.