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Nine By Blue founder Vanessa Fox is author of the critically acclaimed Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business, which has been called the “search marketing bible” by technology leaders. Be sure to pick up your copy today.
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October 8, 2007
USA Today ran an article on Friday that mentioned my conflicted relationship with email that ultimately caused me to declare email bankruptcy. My friends, reminded of my woes, immediately reached out to support me. If only everyone had friends like I have…
So, how has life changed since email bankruptcy? Did the world collapse into burning inferno of email nonresponse? Did bankruptcy hurt my email credit score and force me into one of those high-interest email loan programs you see infomercials for on late-night TV? Have those whose emails I jettisoned started a Facebook group called “those who were shunned by Vanessa’s email bankruptcy and are plotting revenge”?
Amazingly enough, life has gone on. It was much easier to manage incoming mail without the deluge of 15,000 messages threatening to collapse the email system entirely. Anyone who needed a reply emailed me again. And this time, I was actually able to reply.
But I have a long way to go. I can see the email gathering forces, manning battle stations, and attempting to take me over once again. Everyone has a different data management style, and I think I’m learning some things about myself.
- I do a terrible job of deleting mail. I’m not sure why this is. I am an anti-pack rat with my physical belongings. I am merciless in shedding things I don’t need. And yet I’m unable to delete mail that offers me valuable business opportunties in Nigeria.
- I need to reply to mail right away. When I don’t, I get so much new mail that it completely pushes that mail that I’ve read and not replied to right off the page.
- My phone is great for staying caught up with mail, except that if I read something that I really can’t reply to on my phone, it can easily get lost on the email avalanche.
- I am still terrible at folder management.
- I have too many email accounts and I should probably consolidate them in some way.
It is better than it was, but I’ve by no means mastered the art of email nirvana. Ironically, the USA Today reporter contacted me while she was writing the story. She sent me an email. So, of course I didn’t see it until after her deadline had passed.
I went the slash and burn method and just made a new email address, told the people I talk to frequently the new place to reach me and washed my hands of it all.
Of course, i was being spammed to death and there really wasn’t a filing solution for me.
Yeah . . . I have over 50 email addresses. I had them all POP3′d into Outlook but it crashed a few months ago and I just don’t want to spend the money to get ‘another’ copy of MS Office. So I used Outlook Express but I haven’t had the will power to reconfigure all of them (no the importer isn’t working because Outlook is dead, dead, dead).
Honestly it is kind of nice not to have so much email. Also, email messages should be XML/RSS exportable. I could then just add it to an iGoogle.com like page and be set.
I got so fed up with email at work I wrote a book about it (Email Survival Guide). It’s really interesting to read your comments because it’s clear that so many of us have the same problems with email at work. Many companies haven’t yet realised that email slows down their employees so badly that efficiency and therefore profits just get hammered. And as for the personal impact, well I’d love to know how many of us suffer job satisfaction and stress issues because we are struggling to manage the onslaught of email. Well done for raising a major issue!
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Vanessa,
Looks like you got pummled by Michael on this one
I have 4 email addresses in Thunderbird, which is on all day long, and an extra couple Yahoo accounts for risky business.
The 4 I read constantly are the ones I need, and I have a sort of logically separation based on the kind of email I expect to get on each. This way I know which accounts deal with personal matters, business matters of different types, etc.
Then I use the other two “risky business” accounts to subscribe to services that I can’t trust (and end up spamming me often), which in turn keeps the other 4 accounts reasonably safe.
As a related note, I had to declare email bankruptcy once a while ago. My friends have forgiven me, life goes on. I did lose 1 regular client.
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