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6 Secrets to Preventing Email Overload
Author : Donna Gunter
Copyright 2006 Donna Gunter
I wonder now who was the genius who said email would make our
lives easier? Don't you want to strangle this person on some
days??
I've found email to be both a blessing and a curse. I love the
immediacy of the communication, but hate all of the spam and
viruses that I have to be vigilant about.
So, here's 6 quick tips that I use to help me better manage my
email:
1. The rule of handling email is the same as handling paper
correspondence. Only handle it once. When you've read it, decide
at that point to delete it, answer it, or file it for later
action. Don't let you email inbox grow to 1000 or more
messages--that becomes incredibly overwhelming and drains too
much energy from you every day. I receive roughly about 600
pieces of email a day, so if I didn't do something to manage it
properly, I'd be drowning in email.
2. Control your urge to check your email all of the time. I have
my email program set to check email every 4 hours, which is
twice a day for my workday, rather than having the program check
it automatically during the day. I know that many of my clients
will procrastinate on what they need to do by deciding to read
their email rather than to do the pressing items on their to do
lists. Limiting your ability to read your email will result in
getting productivity--I guarantee it!
3. Set up filters (in Eudora) or rules (in Outlook) to
automatically shuffle email into appropriate folders. I have
numerous mailboxes set up in Eudora to house all of the posts of
the discussion lists I belong to or newsletters I receive or
daily correspondence that I get from clients. In many cases, I
have sub-mailboxes set up under my primary mailboxes to further
categorize the email that I receive. I've set these mailboxes up
over time, and in many cases at the point where the email
arrives in my inbox. It may take you 30 or so days to set up
filters or rules for your email, but the effort will be very
worthwhile. Now, when I check email, the mailboxes containing
new mail appear across the bottom of my screen, so I can quickly
eyeball them and figure out what on which emails immediate
action is needed.
4. Be sure that your virus system, firewall system, junk mail
systems are up-to-date. I use Norton for viruses and have it
connected to my email system so that all incoming and outgoing
messages are scanned for viruses. Norton prompts me to update it
regularly. ZoneAlarm, my firewall system, www.zonealarm.com is
up and running whenever I'm online to protect me from any type
of intrusive attacks. Eudora has a built-in junk email detector
system that works relatively well, but I'd prefer that most of
my junkmail never even reach my email program. Consequently, I
use SpamArrest, www.spamarrest.com, which runs $34.95/year. All
of my email goes through SpamArrest before it's downloaded into
Eudora, and I can approve or block certain senders as I see fit.
I log in at the beginning of the day and the end of the day to
see if something was labeled as spam and rescue it, and then
proceed to delete all the spam. Of the 600 emails a day I
receive, I would estimate that at least 400/day are due to spam.
Thanks goodness for SpamArrest!
5. If you're receiving emails via your domain name, like
yourname@yourdomainname.com, and the email address is set up as
a POP3 account, log into your web hosting account and be sure
that you're set up only to receive emails at designated email
addresses. Many times spammers will send emails out to
postmaster@ or webmaster@ or info@, as these are pretty common
email address aliases. If your hosting email account has an
address that is set up to receive all the email to the bogus
aliases (unrouted email) , you'll be getting lots of spam.
Instead, log in to your hosting account and set your default
email address to :blackhole: or to :fail: No Such User Here so
that you'll only get the email at the addresses you've created.
6. Never put your email address on your website. Spammers buy
robot or spider programs that scour websites for unecoded email
addresses to add to their spam database. You can use a contact
form where a visitor will have to input information and send the
form data to you, or you can use an email address encoder
program. I like to maintain the ability for my visitors to email
me if they wish, so I use a program called Natata Anit-Spam
Encoder, http://natata.hn3.net/antispam_encoder.htm. I encode
all the email addresses on my websites and those of clients. The
program is free of charge.
You can tame the email beast, but it'll take a little effort and
energy and due diligence to make it all work. Implement these
steps, and you'll stop dreading receiving email.
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