Thinks I find along the way
Michael Hyatt writes:
Over the course of my career, I have fired off my share of angry letters and e-mail. However, I cannot think of a single time when these communiques had a positive effect. Usually, they only served to escalate the conflict and alienate the recipient.” Get more here: Before You Send That Angry E-mail | Michael Hyatt.
Think twice, click send once…
If you follow the tech media, you’ll know that every few months, some journalist or blogger will start speculating about the imminent demise of email. Headlines along the lines of “Email is Dying” or “The Death of Email” show up in RSS feeds all over the place. You know the drill. This has been going on for years and we’re surprised this argument hasn’t (pardon the pun) died out by now.
Here are some of the points that tend to be be raised:
* People today, especially young people, prefer the immediacy of IM and SMS. So email is dying.
* A variation on the above is that email is old technology (it dates back to the early 1970s) based on the concept of traditional postal mail and doesn’t suit our current needs very well. So email is dying.
* The amount of spam is huge. So email is dying.
One of the more recent claims that email will soon be a thing of the past came from none other than Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Incidentally, he said this while launching Facebook’s new messaging system…
Email, however, is most definitely not dying, and here’s why.
via Royal Pingdom » Why email won’t die anytime soon. You can follow the ‘via’ link to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper but in the meantime, if you have to use email, use Gmail or Google Apps for Business. Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business…
Email is such a simple tool but it makes or breaks so many people’s productivity and it breaks my heart to see how many people struggle with handling it…
“How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? Are you an inbox zero freak like me? Or do you have emails piled up and unread that you’re hoping you’ll get time to get to?
I’m not judging – I used to have as messy an inbox as anyone. And even now, if I go on vacation or don’t check my email for too long, I can get in a heap of trouble: the email piles up, and it can be a real chore getting back to my empty inbox.
I’ve got a few tips up my sleeve though to make dealing with email a little less painful – and I’ve found the best defense is a strong offense. In this article, I’m going to give you some concrete tips and examples to reduce the number of emails in your inbox instantly – and help you keep it that way long term with the use of filters.” Source: 5 Types of Emails You Should be Automatically Filtering – Stepcase Lifehack
Here are the 5 types:
You’ll have to go to the source if you’re interested in the full rationale behind these statements. #6 [the one I added] comes from seeing how email is used as a CYA tool in large corporations. I have a friend — let’s call her Sue — Sue is an important mucky-muck at a large manufacturing organization and she’s stuck in email hell. She’s a slave to Outlook and her BlackBerry. I would venture to say that 70% or more of the email she receives is CYA. How much easier Sue’s life would be if she’d only use Outlook to put all the emails where her name appears on the cc: line in a special folder to read later when she had more time. Or used the filter on her BlackBerry Enterprise Server to only send her the emails where her name appeared on the to: line. Sigh!
As the author says, these filters work particularly well with Gmail or Google Apps [both of which I use] to manage mail effectively.
“Once you’ve created some of these filters, GMail (what I use) has an option to immediately run them on whatever you’ve got in your inbox. Use this to instantly filter low priority items away so you can focus on what’s important.
Going forward, your filters will be applied to any new email that comes in. This will keep your inbox clean so you can read the relevant, important emails first, before you head to your folders to deal with these low priority emails that may still be important to you – but don’t require as quick a response.” Source: 5 Types of Emails You Should be Automatically Filtering – Stepcase Lifehack
One more thought for those of you unlucky enough to be on MY emailing target list. I send ‘just in case’ info from my personal gmail account and important ‘just in time’ email from my e1evation account. If you’re smart, you’ll filter emails from toddlohenry@gmail.com and make sure emails from todd@e1evation.com are granted the HIGHEST priority! Those of you who are prolific emailers may want to grant your frequent recipients a similar escape hatch…
As always, I invite readers to comment, call or contact me and let me know what YOU think [or ask for help if they’re caught in email hell!]…
Here are the results of a recent lifehacks survey…
“If all the methodology of the best GTD applications loses you in the productivity shuffle, there’s nothing like a classic, simple to-do list to keep you on track. You’ve never had more options—both simple and robust—for managing your to-do list as you do today. On Tuesday we asked you to share your favorite to-do list managers, and today we’re back with the five most popular answers. Keep reading for a glimpse at the five best to-do list managers, then vote for the to-do tool you like best.” Source: Hive Five: Five Best To-Do List Managers
Personally, I use Rememberthemilk because of the ability to integrate it into Gmail and my Blackberry, but I’m fluent in Outlook as well as ‘pen and paper’. Questions? Feedback? Leave a comment or use the contact page to reach me…
Update 10/25/09: Lifehacker lists these tools: Microsoft Outlook, Rememberthemilk, Pen and Paper, Text and Todoist. It’s one of the rare times I take issue with one of their posts. Here are a couple of other tools that are getting my attention in this space lately:
If you only have time to look at one, try reQall. Easy to use and inexpensive…
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Bright, shiny objects! 