Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam

Spam, Spam, Spam, Sausage and Spam

If you are like me, you get hundreds of emails every day.

Emails to my business address.
Emails to my personal address.
Emails to the gmail account I created for Google doc access and literally use for nothing else.
Emails to the AOL account I’ve had since 1993 and keep around as a place to send order confirmations when I buy stuff online so that the spam generated from those businesses selling their mailing lists stays out of my main inboxes.
So… many… emails.

It’s easy to lose hours of productive time just reading emails.

And at some point, it also occurs to you that every email YOU send is ending up in someone else’s overly-full inbox and may be lost in their tidal wave of emails. But that’s a discussion for a later date.

Emails can be triaged:

RED: There are the ones you know you need to read and probably will need to respond to immediately—scan through the unread list and respond to those first. If it’s coming from your client, your boss, or your direct report, it should be top of this list. Check for these a few times each day.

YELLOW: These are ones you need to read and might need to respond to within a 24-hour email grace-period. Check through these in a block once per day. Respond when appropriate—even a “Got it—thanks!” is a good way to communicate you have received the material. Archive the ones in which you are CCed to stay in the loop but don’t need to respond back.

GREEN: These you can save as unread in the inbox and read when you have some free time. Advertisements for things you actually need to buy, interesting articles, substack posts with titles repeating the name of a spiced luncheon meat in the header, etc. If you are slammed by a rapidly-approaching deadline, reading these is not the best use of your time. But keep it around for a less-hectic time.

Delete the spam at any point in this process. Send it to the junk folder, and train your system to stop allowing it through.

(Photo by Hannes Johnson on Unsplash)