Thanks to Paul Thompson (aka Captbunzo), I’ve started to question the effectiveness of our Labels in the sidebar – the ones that popout to show you the label hierarchy when you move your mouse over them (Projects, Contexts, etc.).
The proposal is two-fold,
1) The new Gmail ‘recent labels’ UI is a pain in the backside for GTD-based labels, as it pushes everything down. Therefore we should include an option to make these be hideable.
2) The labels popout is too fiddly to be useful. Instead, we should restore how labels used to be handled, where they are permanently fixed to the sidebar (but can be hidden by category).
The benefits, on top of being less jumpy (and therefore easier to click), is that they give you a constant ‘at a glance’ overview of the state of your inbox/actions; serving as a gentle nudge.
I think this will be an improvement, but I can see a downside that it potentially consumes more space (although I’ll say again, you will be able to hide each category). I think we will go ahead and try this, but we can always refine it (or restore the current method) – but let me know your thoughts before I change anything?

Thanks to Paul Thompson (aka Captbunzo), we’ve started to have a closer look at the effectiveness of our Labels in the Sidebar – the Projects/Contexts/etc. that popout to show the label hierarchy.

The reasons for the change, and thus the proposed changes, are two-fold:

1) The new Gmail ‘recent labels’ UI is a pain in the backside for GTD-based labels, as it pushes everything down and needs constant scrolling. Therefore we should include an option to make these hideable.

2) The labels box that pops out is too fiddly to be useful. Instead, we should restore how labels used to be handled: where they are permanently fixed inside the sidebar (but can be hidden by category).

The benefits, beyond being less jumpy (and therefore easier to click), is that they give you a constant ‘at a glance’ overview of the state of your inbox/actions; serving as a gentle nudge.

I think this will be an improvement, but I can see a downside that it potentially consumes more space (although I’ll say again, you will be able to hide each category). Let me know your thoughts before I change anything?

  

This was written by Andy Mitchell