I was just reading on Michael Hyatt's blog about a nifty way to organize email following the ideas from David Allen's Getting Things Done.  And sites like 43folders.com regularly have well thought-out posts about staying on top of your tasks.

I did something similar to Michael a while ago and thought somebody might find it useful.  First, keep in mind that I use IMAP for my email.  Many paid email hosting services and email server programs like Exchange support IMAP, although I can't think of any free providers that do.  IMAP keeps your messages *and* folders on your mail server and can make life convenient if you have to switch between computers when traveling, etc.

Here is a screenshot of my folders in Thunderbird:

I try to follow the GTD approach.  At first, I created folders called next-tasks, waiting, someday-maybe, and reference.  But Thunderbird won't let you rearrange the order of folders inside an account.  I did find here a Thunderbird extension that will let you reorder your accounts if you have multiple email accounts.

To get around the order issue (I really wanted next-tasks first and waiting second), I renamed my folders to 1_next-tasks, 2_waiting, etc. to work around Thunderbird's need to alphabetize my folders.

After about a week or so I found that I needed to break my reference section up a little bit.  So I use the main 4_reference folder for generic reference info and then use the more specific sub-folders when I need to.  I also added a folder called 5_candidates because we're always hiring and I wanted to track resumes separately as a project.

Our email system and many others support folders in a very helpful way: if my email address is kirkblog@webmail.us and I have a subfolder called "hello", I can send an email to kirkblog+hello@webmail.us and the message will be delivered directly to my hello folder.  BTW, I don't really have a hello folder so please don't send me an email there.  :)

That way, I don't have to create any rules to copy an email to my own waiting folder the way Michael describes.  To take advantage of Thunderbird's address auto-complete, I did add contacts to my address book like "waiting" with an email address including "+2_waiting" inside to get the email directly to the right folder.

I used to print resumes, evaluate them, make a few notes on them, then file them as "good" (as in might be a good fit) and "other" (a gentle way of saying probably not a good fit) and file them in my cabinet.  But I really wanted to go paperless as much as possible

There is a great Thunderbird extension, called Message Notes that has been a huge help with resumes, next tasks, etc.  It adds a small section to my email messages and a button to let me add a note to the email.  Now, when I receive a resume, it goes into the resume folder.  When I'm ready to review resumes I go to the folder, read a resume, add my note to the email, then move that email to the right subfolder.

I put specific next task notes on an email before moving it to the right folder, and put specific waiting-for notes on emails inside that folder.  That way, I don't have to re-read an entire email to see what I'm supposed to do.  Because this is so useful, I don't often use the above mailbox+folder trick above with waiting-for messages; I just sent my email then add a note to the message in my inbox before dragging and dropping into my waiting folder.

My system is mostly functional.  It is still tough to keep my inbox clean with as many emails as I get (hey, I work for an email hosting company!)  But overall I'm pretty happy with it.

-Kirk