This sucks. I'm trying to catch up on email this morning, so the first thing I did was move everything old than 30 days into an "old" folder that I'll probably never look at. But I do want it to be searchable.
However, after doing so, I still have 674 unread and 1,125 total messages in my inbox.
Grr.
Time to make a "14+ days old" filter in Thunderbird and repeat the process, I guess.
Update: Okay, I did the 14+ day thing and brought it down to 412/612. That's good, but the ratio of unread to read messages got a lot worse. It's gonna be a long day.
Posted by jzawodn at March 11, 2005 08:20 AM
I routinely have 50,000+ messages in my inbox with at least 2500 unread. Every now and then I will lean on my delete key and bring my unread down a couple of hundred, but it is a battle you can never win. People who really want to get a hold of me learn to make their subject lines look really appealing (while still avoiding really strict spam filters) or do as my family does and email my wife instead and have her bug me which, while extremely annoying, is quite effective.
I don't see how or why you all get so many emails? I'm the ceo of a technology firm and I get less than 200 per day... and I read as I go. Do you let them pile up for weeks before looking at them?
I work for a state agency (Texas) and I routinely get over 300 emails per day. This is because people in the agency tend to forward all email that may be pertinent to their staff without realizing that it was a broadcast message that EVERYONE received in the first place. If I receive one broadcast message on a particular subject, I can be guaranteed to receive the exact same message from different people at least 5 times. Insane, isn't it?
Pat,
I don't know what to tell you. I'm involved in a lot of stuff and can't sit at my desk all day trying to do email. I have meetings, presentations, trips, etc.
It seems this problem should eventually take care of itself, once people realize that email is not an effective means of communicating with you and it stands a good chance of being deleted without being viewed. Who knows, maybe they will start posting the content of their emails to your blog. Less competition for views here.
How about having different aliases for different tasks? I mean me@zawodny.com for friends, info@zawodny.com for more important ones and so on. And also some rules for those who still send to the previous address to classify them. Will that help?
Ya, I can understand all the meetings and such. Still seems like a lot of emails. Question to the other reader who said, "email is not an effective means of communicating with you..."
Did you mean that email is not an effective way to communicate or it is not an effective way to communicate with Jeremy because he lets all his emails pile up? Very curious... (I wish there was a way with RSS to have comments delivered to an RSS reader, but only if you request it. There isn't, is there?)
I used to get uncomfortable when my inbox required me to scroll. Lately, inspired by David Allen's Getting Things Done (GtD) methodology, I try to get my inbox to zero several times a day. Before you say, "I could never...", this is not to say that I don't have email that is pending an action or a reply. All it means is that I periodically do a quick scan of my inbox and sort items into folders, based on the nature of them. For example, @Today for action items that I need to do today, @Later for action items that have more flexibility, @Read for a long proposal that I can read at my leisure (a.k.a.: never :-)), @Reply for something that needs me to write a reply to them, @Wait for something where I'm waiting on something or someone else, etc... And if I can take action on something in 2 minutes or less, I typically just do it and then I can delete the email and avoid the folders and the associated overhead. It sounds simple, but it really helps me to feel more in control of my email, since it preserves the inbox as an _inbox_ instead of a storage area, so I don't have to keep rescanning it. Since you're traveling a lot, I suspect that this may be an even bigger win for you than for me, since you coul crank through all your @Read stuff while you're waiting in airports and such.
Some resources:
I used to get uncomfortable when my inbox required me to scroll. Lately, inspired by David Allen's Getting Things Done (GtD) methodology, I try to get my inbox to zero several times a day. Before you say, "I could never...", this is not to say that I don't have email that is pending an action or a reply. All it means is that I periodically do a quick scan of my inbox and sort items into folders, based on the nature of them. For example, @Today for action items that I need to do today, @Later for action items that have more flexibility, @Read for a long proposal that I can read at my leisure (a.k.a.: never :-)), @Reply for something that needs me to write a reply to them, @Wait for something where I'm waiting on something or someone else, etc... And if I can take action on something in 2 minutes or less, I typically just do it and then I can delete the email and avoid the folders and the associated overhead. It sounds simple, but it really helps me to feel more in control of my email, since it preserves the inbox as an _inbox_ instead of a storage area, so I don't have to keep rescanning it. Since you're traveling a lot, I suspect that this may be an even bigger win for you than for me, since you could crank through all your @Read stuff while you're waiting in airports and such.
Some resources:
yahoo web mail seems to work pretty well at spam reduction despite me having used my yahoo email address for 5 years and having signed up for all sorts of free offers as well as being on all sorts of groups and subscription services.
This newest scam of fake paypal and ebay stuff is anoying and these "dear sir" investment opportunity in nigeria letters seem to be slipping by. Perhaps they've got a name that I've put a filter whole for them to squeeze through.
Its a pain...I was trying to migrate to my own mail servers but maybe I'll end up forwarding them TO my yahoo account?
I just started filtering incoming email by sender. If you're a member of my team, or a vendor who's helping with one of the fifteen huge projects I'm juggling at the moment, or my wife, or my boss, then a little yellow flag gets put next to your email when it comes in. All the other emails get no flag, and I don't look at them until the yellow ones are cleared out. It works amazingly well for me, much better than I thought it would.
Email that isn't explicitly addressed to me has always gotten shunted into the "Not to Me" folder and I delete most of those once a month. If you wanted me to read it, you should have addressed it to me...
Maybe we all need a filter that categorizes emails. Not just a binary categorization like "spam" and "not spam". I think some of the bayesian filters might be able to help in that.
Use an email service like Yahoo and/or hotmail for messages from other than those from private parties or from businesses. I do this and my personal email stays at a manageable level.
I sent you a mail with some inputs on the Calendar post. Was wondering how I haven't got a reply yet. Now I know ;)
(Also, next time I shall keep the mail shorter)
