Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Drishtikone

Home
Hindu
The Secrets To E-Mail Nirvana

The Secrets To E-Mail Nirvana

Last updated on: October 6, 2005 at 3:17 pm by Desh Kapoor

The Secrets To E-Mail Nirvana 2005-10-06T15:17:29-05:00 Desh Kapoor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

News Source:

Forbes.com

News Highlight:

You crank up your computer every morning, click to your e-mail and–whap!–a slew of messages demands attention.

E-mail can be a great tool, but many misuse it, turning what should be quick, easy communication into a laborious, time-consuming management chore.

“Many people use the inbox as a to-do list, calendar and filing system,” says Mark Hurst president and founder of Creative Good, a consulting firm in New York. “File some messages and delete most of them, but without a doubt, don’t let anything stay in your inbox permanently.”

Hurst says effective e-mail management is built on filters, filing and ruthless use of the delete key.

He offers this distinction to better define the problem: The number of new messages received each day is “volume” while the number of e-mails sitting in the inbox is “message count.” The second is the key measure of effective e-mail management.

“A user who gets 100 messages a day may not be overloaded at all if the message count is low,” Hurst says. “Conversely, a user who gets ten e-mails a day may be overloaded.”

If the number of messages stacked in the inbox becomes too large and difficult to manage, you’re overloaded. The e-mail system then becomes a black hole rather than a productivity tool and your output will suffer.

“If overload is the problem, then removing the load is the solution,” Hurst says in a special report, “Managing Incoming E-mail.” “Here’s how to manage incoming e-mail: Keep the inbox empty–clear out incoming e-mails before they pile up or you lose your ability to manage them effectively.”

But there’s just one catch and, unlike catch-22, it’s not the least bit philosophical.

“It may be a simple solution, but it’s not easy,” Hurst says. “Achieving simplicity–or emptiness, in this case–takes time and continued improvement. It’s difficult but better than drowning in e-mails and becoming less effective. Only an empty inbox will allow users to take full advantage of the benefits of e-mail.”

The first step is deleting all spam. Never reply to spam because the spammer will know your e-mail address is active and sell it to others at a premium. The result: more spam.

Next, read all personal e-mail from friends or family and save selected messages as needed elsewhere on your computer or print out important notes. It might be a good idea to check your personal e-mail account at work and use it to chitchat and exchange goofball jokes with your lunatic friends while reserving your company account for (gasp) work-related items. Admit it: This would sharply reduce the volume of incoming mail on the company e-mail system.

Hurst says messages should be sorted by date with the oldest message at the top of the list. Each message should be opened and the appropriate action–filing or deletion– should be taken quickly. This will prevent the accumulation of a 500-message stack in your inbox.

Hurst says newsletters should be read or scanned quickly, but never filed because then you’ll have two cluttering up your inbox when the next arrives. FYIs, or non-actionable information such as an answer to a question or notification of an event, should be read quickly, filed if necessary and deleted as soon as possible.

Hurst urges use of the “two-minute rule” for to-dos. If the task outlined in the e-mail takes two minutes or less to complete, even if it means getting out of your chair, do it immediately and delete the message.

If you’re way behind in managing your e-mail, Hurst recommends a ruthless cleaning out of the clutter in the inbox to allow users to manage e-mail effectively with just a few minutes work each day. It may take several whacks to get through all the old junk, but once it’s cleaned out, it’s done and future management of the inbox can be handled in just a few minutes each day.

E-mail arrives throughout the day so it’s impossible to keep the inbox empty at all times. Hurst recommends dealing with e-mails as soon as possible after each arrives or setting aside a few minutes several times a day to complete the task.

“Users shouldn’t let an inbox go more than one business day without emptying,” he says.

The technique will work for Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT – news – people ) Outlook, Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO – news – people ) Mail, Qualcomm’s (nasdaq: QCOM – news – people ) Eudora, IBM’s (nyse: IBM – news – people ) Lotus Notes and Google’s (nasdaq: GOOG – news – people ) Gmail.

Google says its e-mail users can sort through old messages and won’t ever have to throw anything out. This raises a basic question: Who wants to save old jokes, memos or answers to questions you’ve long forgotten?

Filters will screen out most of the junk. For starters, Hurst recommends setting up your filter to accept mail from everyone in your address book. Suspected spam, including any e-mail containing viruses or unknown attachments, gets sent to purgatory–a folder for suspected junk mail from unknown senders. Any e-mail with three or more consecutive exclamation points gets zapped. Set the filter to automatically delete any e-mail containing raunchy words you’d expect to find in sexually explicit spam.

Have the filter kill any e-mail with “adv” in the message line. Expand the list of subject lines to kill starting with obvious pitches such as “Free Long Distance,” “Find background info about anyone,” “Quit Smoking” and “Be your own boss.” Compiling the list requires some thought because many spam subject lines appear in legitimate e-mail such as free, mortgage, university, diploma and life insurance.

Software will thin the thundering herd of spam seeking to graze and fatten your inbox, but it’s not the final, or best, way to manage e-mail.

“‘Delete’ is one keystroke,” Hurst says. “I don’t know what’s easier than that.”

URL of the news item:
http://www.forbes.com/careers/2005/09/22/email-microsoft-work-cx_sr_0922bizbasics.html

Uncategorized

Previous Post

October 6, 2005

- Words Women Use

Next Post

October 6, 2005 - Locations of US rigs

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Aarti Achievement and Leadership AfPak Africa Annual and Year-end Asia Audio Australia Behavioural Sciences Bhagwad Gita Bhagwad Gita Blogging Blogs Business Business Intelligence Business Strategy Cannes Careers Chanakya China Conservation Corruption Creative Daily Links Desh Poems Development & Welfare Devotional Audio Devotional Songs Drama Earth Economics Education Entertainment Environment Europe Everyday Quotes Featured Articles Featured Songs Finance Flickr Pictures Food Geo-Political Global Warming Globalization Health & Medicine Hinduism Historic History Humour India Indian Culture Indian music Indian Weddings Israel Issues Legal Link Love Minorities Misc Motivation and Personal Development Movie Lists Movie Reviews Movies Mumbai terror attacks Natural Disasters Nature News Outsourcing Pakistan Parenting Personal Philosophy Poetry Politics Poverty Quotes Recipe Regular Blog Post Relationships Religion Religious/Spiritual Audio Sciences Showcase Slideshow South Asia Special Stories Spiritual Quotes Spirituality Sports Stories Strategy Technology Technology Terrorism Travel Uncategorized US Video Women Women_s Rights Worship Yoga

Select a Month December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 June 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 September 2014 August 2014 January 2014 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did Job maintain throughout his speeches?

Select your answer to see how you score.

His guilt His innocence His silence His wealth