Categories
Life(style)

Inbox 0?

So, I may have been a bit quiet for the past 16 hours … aside from sleep, I’ve been implementing ‘Inbox 0’ … as you can see there are still 200-odd emails to be dealt with, but I can see where those are, rather than in the previous complicated series of rules/folders – which meant I was starting to miss some (as I am using my phone more heavily – and those disappear straight out of sight). So, using a newsletter from Matt Stocker from a week or so ago, in which he recommends 3 folders:

  • Action Required: Do I need to take action? Put it in the folder, then deal with it as soon as possible. Don’t let this folder get out of control.
  • Archive: Things you might want to keep, but unsorted as the search will allow finding
  • Waiting For: Something to which you can’t make further progress until someone responds.

I have found having a folder into which I post all my RSS feeds/newsletters particularly helpful to deal with in a chunk, so I’ve kept that, and a separate project that I also deal with at specific times. And from having around 6000+ emails that I wasn’t sure what to do with – here we are this morning:

inbox0a

Let’s see how it goes! I use it in conjunction with Do.Com – which is started to shout at me less, as I’m becoming VAGUELY more realistic about how long things take, and the cost-benefit/ROI of how much time to spend on different things … all part of the coaching journey!

And that’s the work email, still got others to work out, but as with my house/wardrobe, etc. gradually getting on top of things..

Categories
Digital

E-Mail free Friday anyone?

Interesting story blaming email for much stress at work – has some points, but certainly don’t agree it’s necessarily down to the email:

Soul-crushing email causes stress and slows work. Oliver Double proposes some ways to cut the burden. Email-free Friday, anyone?

I spend up to four hours of my working day dealing with email, and I can’t help wondering whether it really is time well spent.

Email is probably the biggest source of stress in my life. It’s the treacle I have to wade through before getting to more important – and rewarding – aspects of my job. Email creates a sense of high responsibility and yet, at the same time, passivity. It’s always requests from other people; and because you can’t control when these requests will come, you can never plan your time. Email makes you react instead of just act. Email is a crusher of joy and job satisfaction, and – just like painting the Forth Bridge – it’s a job you can never complete. You clear your in-box, but still it keeps dripping back in. Drip, drip, drip…

I regularly rant to friends and colleagues about how much I hate email, and they all feel the same. Everybody hates it – but there’s nothing to be done about it, right?

Wrong.

Read full story as he goes on to identify ways that he thinks could help to improve the use of email, particularly ‘Email Free Friday’. Our university sometimes implements e-mail free days, but I think that’s blaming the tool for the way that people use it – in one way it’s a decent gimmick to get people thinking about how they are using email, but on the other hand, email is still regular tool (although I’d prefer Facebook/Twitter much of the time) and therefore needs to be used… appropriately!

Categories
Digital

New Email?

I signed up with Freenetname back in the mists of time, and have stuck with it since that time. I am having a few problems, and am looking for recommendations to change:

  • It provided a free domain name (http://www.bex-lewis.co.uk), 100MB of storage space, and an associated POP3 email account for £20 per year, which I still think is a good deal.
  • The account was originally on dial-up, but I’ve not had to use that for a long-time, using wi-fi anywhere I can access it (or 3G on my phone if not!)
  • I want to retain my domain name and email address (downloadable into Outlook), but will be transferring my website onto WordPress.org, so will be looking for an easy to use host which allows that (and then I will integrate this blog into it).
  • I have never been able to send emails using the POP3 account on my iPhone (or through my workplace wi-fi, but that is never going to happen), although I can receive in both places, and this is becoming a problem.
I already have a g-mail account, but I like having the email under my domain name. I play with social media more than I know about lots of technical stuff, although I have a reputation as a bit of a geek girl! Let me know: bex at bex-lewis.co.uk