Exploring the Role of E-mail in Personal Information Management (PIM)

Abstract

Abstract
The main goal of combining E-mail with the personal information management (PIM) concept is to expect that when users need some data, the data will appear on the right position in the right format, and ready for delivery to the right people. PIM includes three areas of special importance: task management, personal archiving and contact management. E-mail plays a critical role in PIM. This article explains almost every important PIM function currently involved in E-mail. Personal information management is not a new concept and all individuals in their lives handle a considerable amount of information for undertaking personal responsibilities and performing diverse tasks and activities. PIM refers to a set of activities a person performs in order to acquire or create, store, organize, maintain, retrieve, use and distribute personal information for different purposes, including preserving personal and family information assets. This paper discusses about PIM and different types of PIM. It also explains different problems for PIM functions in E-mail. It also highlights the E-mail as the unifying application for PIM mainly task management, personal archiving and contact management.

Keywords: Personal information management, e-mail, task management, personal archiving, contact management