Hi,
I, like most people here, get a lot of email - mailing lists, bug
notifications, notifications from services I don't care about, and even the
occasional real email from friends and family. In short, my email became a
source agnostic dumping ground which served as a constant distraction and
annoyance. Everything from someone un-CCing themselves from a bug report, to
telling me about their marriage is suddenly equal.
I had some trouble dealing with it all, and felt there was information
overload and started looking at alternate means of getting the information
that actually matters to me.
I want to hear how you manage your email and information overload. Are
there some specific workflows like Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" which seem to
have worked for you? Are there any secret and interesting email clients
that help you deal with information overload?
My workflow is slightly better now. I use sup [1] to read and vim to write
my messages. I wrote my own tool [2] to deal with bugzilla and comment
notifications. I've learned to turn off email and check it only once every
few hours - which helped boost productivity at the expense of not being
instantly available.
So please, share your secrets! Thank you!
[1] - http://sup.rubyforge.org
[2] - http://anirudhsanjeev.org/projects/splatter
Setup:
- I use an ordinary Gmail Email (for 4 years). It gets around 200 email per day (that's around 8 emails/hour).
- Apart from the usual email, I have few other emails with domains (like support@mydomain.com). I use Google apps for them and I forward all emails that I receive from these domains to the main ordinary Gmail Email.
Benefits:
- The ordinary email works like a repository for all my emails. By checking it, I check all emails I have.
- The domains emails make it easier for me to arrange emails and keep a record of them. For example, I'm using a separate email address for my PayPal account. This keeps a record of all received or sent payments. In the same time, when I get a payment, the email show up on my primary email and then I get notified without the need to check all my in-boxes.
Usage:
1- When at home (my office), I run Gtalk full time (rarely my friends nudge me). When I get an email, GTalk pops up a box. I quickly read the email title. If it's the usual spam (80% of my emails are useless), I just ignore it, if it's an important one, I pause work and open my mail box.
2- When outside doors, I use my mobile to check emails. Doesn't have a regular checking time, but when I feel I want to check I check. If there is an important email, I read it; but most of the time reply when I get back home.
3- I sleep like all humans. When I wake up, the first thing I do (before anything) is running my netbook, check emails, reply or read and then archive them all. My inbox is now empty! A new day, get back at point 1.
Usability:
- Make use of the Gmail Star (also Gmail keeps emails conversations gathered in one email, that's the most useful feature).
- Hit the Spam button