July 7, 2006
E-mail Overhaul - Step 2 - Delete
I am ready to make the second permanent change in my e-mail management strategy. This one may surprise you. Here it is:
Immediately Delete Any E-mail Where My Name is Not in the To Box
This may sound drastic but it really is not.
This past week I searched through my e-mail for all of 2006 and I discovered that I could easily have skipped every e-mail that was not sent directly to me. This includes e-mail where I was part of a distribution list or where I was cc’d. Not one of them was important yet many of them received responses (most often they were snide comments forwarded to others). I read all of them. This was hours and hours of time I spent reading and responding to correspondence that meant nothing.
Distribution lists and bulk e-mail are killers. They waste the time of everyone who is included in the distribution. If something is really important, the sender should take the time to send a personalized e-mail or better yet, place a phone call to make sure the message is received and understood.
Effective immediately I am deleting all e-mail that fall into this category. Since this week was a light e-mail week (because of the July 4th holiday) I can’t get an accurate idea of how much time this will save me. I’ll report back next week and let you know.
Have I lost my mind? Let me know.
For more on this topic, please read:
Step One to a New E-mail Lifestyle
Filed under: Personal Productivity
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Advocating emails (and Blackberry)
David Lorentzo fights his battle with an email disease and has taken the second step in building his new email lifestyle. This time (and please read the entire story - the links at the end of his blog) David tries
Trackback by Roman's miles — July 8, 2006 @ 13:38
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