Some thoughts about a ’12 step’ program for email junkies.
Another article that caught my eye was on CNN Twelve-steps to curing e-mail addiction. Being overwhelmed by email is certainly a problem, but we’re not sure that some of the suggestions are the right course.
In particular the idea of ‘clearing’ the Inbox and putting all messages in sub-folders. Lot of Email Essentials readers like this approach – it made sense when email clients were less powerful, had less storage capability and it emulated what we do on a ‘meatspace’ desk (take items from the in tray, deal with them, then file in the cabinet).
There’s no technical reason to keep the Inbox or Sent Items folder empty – Outlook or Outlook Express can handle thousands of messages happily. Keeping messages in the Inbox can be more efficient, filtering, views, categories and (in Outlook 2003 and 2007) Search Folders mean that you can view the email you want to see without jumping around different folders. Some desktop search systems will only index the main mail folders and ignore extra folders created by the user.
And there’s the time taken to move all those messages around – some can be done automatically but not always.
Rather than keep the Inbox empty, mark messages you’ve dealt with as read. Your main Inbox view can be ‘Unread Messages only’ temporarily hiding the rest.
Have a look at the way you store your emails and check out what your email program can do. It might be time to re-arrange your filing system to take advantage of the neat tools available to you.
There’s considerable power in the software you’ve bought, make use of it. This is the place for a shameless plug for our Organizing Outlook Email ebook which will help you manage your Inbox effectively.
One thing we do agree with, is ‘letting go’ of regular email checking. Having messages appearing through the day can be an enormous distraction. Our solution (which we’ve mentioned before in these newsletters) is to extend the time between polling for email. Instead of checking for new messages every 10 or 15 minutes – make it an hour or two.
