I've been using email for a very long time.
I think my first email address was an AOL.com address from version 1.0 of their software.
Since that time I have had multiple email addresses. I no longer use the AOL.com address, but it is still active!
I have two primary email accounts that I use today.
One of them is my corporate account and the other is my personal account.
Both addresses have become inundated with so much email that they have almost become unmanageable.
I'm not even talking about junk mail. I am talking about the flood of messages I receive from those I have done business with in the past. Whether as a consumer or from a business relationship, my email has gotten out of hand.
As a result, the past couple months have found me resolute to take control of my email.
Here's what I have done...
1) I have unsubscribed from every list but those that I read on a regular basis. This includes most marketer's emails. It also includes most topical newsletters. On top of that, I have booted just about every merchant that I have purchased stuff from in the past. When I say I am cleaning up, I mean I am cleaning up.
2) I have segmented my mail better. I really need to keep business going to the business address and personal email going to my personal address. Sometimes the two get intertwined and I am working to unravel that mess.
3) One word... FOLDERS. I have THOUSANDS of saved messages on my mail server. I have created a couple dozen folders to organize these messages. I don't like to delete anything for a couple reasons. First of all, you never know what you may need to refer back to some point in the future. And secondly, I like to keep a historical record. I've got some emails dating back a number of years. Its fascinating to see where I have been.
4) One of the best things leaders do to be more effective is allow an item to cross their desk only one time. I've had a hard time doing that with email. If I need to deal with it, it stays in my inbox as a reminder. It is typical for me to have 100-150 messages in my INBOX at any given time. Not any more. If I have an email left in my box now it is because it is current. If I haven't dealt with it in the past month or so, the message either gets filed, responded to right away or deleted. Sorry if you have written me and I haven't responded to you, but I can't respond to everyone. Don't take it personally.
5) On that note, I am NOT responding to every request. Not only do I receive requests via email, but they also come my way via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and my contact form. There just isn't enough of me to go around. I apologize if your message hits the virtual circular bin, but I can't live to please everyone. In fact, I am learning that I only need to please one person... and you aren't Him. :-)
Perhaps taking control of my email and incoming requests is just another way of taking control of my life.
And I'll say this... if you aren't receiving benefit from my emails, then why do you continue to subscribe? If you decide to follow my example and I end up losing you as a subscriber, at least my last piece of advice to you will be useful.
Of course, if that's the case then perhaps you should stay on my list after all. ;-)
It's your email. It's your time. You get to decide how to manage it.
Now, I'm off to throttle my junk mail filters to a greater sensitivity level.
Comments? Let's here 'em!
I must say I thought you were speaking directly to me and that you had seen my inbox with all of my emails. You make perfect sense and I too have started to unsubscribe to some of the email that I receive. I like the idea of segmenting the business from the personal and will have to sit down and really hit that delete button more often. But don't worry you are safe as I do read your emails. -:)
Hi Joel - I read your approach to handling e-mails with interest and decided to make handling of e-mails the topic of my next post - with acknowledgement to you and your post (and a link), if this is OK with you?
I like your approach. I created a limited number of major action and non-action read folders and clear my inbox into these folders and work from them. I found its dangerous to work from an overcrowded inbox as important emails get forgotten in the inboxsphere.
Albert
PS Just finished reading Twitter Power 2.0. It's great!
Thanks Joel for the good article.
In addition to these tips, I recommend to use "labels" and "multiple inboxes"
feature in gmail, it really makes a huge difference.
Check out the Outlook Add-In "Clear Context" there is a 30 day trial. Does a lot of what you are doing "automatically" Version 5.2 is just about out.
And no, I don't work for them, I just REALLY believe in this software.
Check out XOBNI.com while you are at it. This Add-In helps you find email you knew you had some place. Search is better than what comes with outlook or what Windows gives you.
Joel: It is great to hear of another person who is fighting the war of email. My in box is down to about 32 and I keep it that way by the same method you are using. I sometimes feel guilty that I can not answer all email, but the most import get a response which in turn moves me to my desired goal for the day.
I enjoy the control and enjoy your blog. Keep your thoughts coming.
Harry
My email management got a whole lot easier when I shifted to gmail a few years ago. Now I DON'T even think about folders -- hard not to for a former librarian -- and I use fast search feature all the time.
I used to create folders and set filters to automatically go into appropriate folders, which helps you quickly pay attention to priority emails first. Also, i have separate id to manage subscriptions apart from my biz id and personal id....this makes my life easier :-)
One of my effective means of emailing was to invest in a Blackberry. It made my email life manageable.
What do you use to manage your actual email? Do you use web-based or outlook or something entirely different?
Hey Joel,
I love direct messages. I once sent a similar message to my list, and almost no one unsubscribed. I couldn't believe it. Here's to the power and "drain" of email. By the way, the Socrates theme is great. Stay well.
Wayne Sharer
I took this very route a year or so ago after reading Mark Hurst's Bit Literacy and now have a maximum of four messages in any inbox, corporate or personal, at any time. Ditto Sent items.
Like you, I've created folders into which messages go on arrival, or after they're sent, which makes them really easy to find later. I also have a Stuff To Do folder where anything that's requiring action goes - either action on my part or Sent items requiring action by somebody else. Stuff to Do gets checked every morning and I find it a really good way to keep on top of email-related tasks - and particularly to stay on top of tasks delegated to other people.
I've also recently blitzed my subs to cut down on the clutter, and overall I no longer feel oppressed by my inbox!
Absolute, definitely the way to go...
Hi, Joel,
Honestly, I just finished removing myself from 5 Marketers Lists. LOL
How timely your post is..........
I too am overwhelmed by E-Mails. After being online for 10 Years and signing up for soooo many Newsletters etc. it "Crazy" trying to keep up with all the great NEW things happening out there.
To top it off, I have over 1000 Personal addresses in my Outlook data base to deal with......
I really laughed when I read you sometimes have over 150 Messages in your In-box.......right now I have over TWO THOUSAND...and that is with deleting at least 300 Messages a day....
I have two G-Mail Accounts and my personal one...but sometimes I find it easier to have things sent to my Personal one...I don't have to Log-In etc....but I can sure see how that has back fired.
I do get many things to go directly into Folders and then quickly look at what came into that folder and mostly Delete.
NOW I am a member of GVO and have access to a complete SYSTEM where I can set up ALL my E-Mails into separate Lists....I just need to find the time to do that. What I do like is the prospect of the ability to "Personalize" each letter I send to my personal list instead of always saying "greetings friends".
Thanks, Joel, as usual for all your great tips for the last 5 years. Keep up the good work.......
About pleasing "HIM", He is the ONLY one we ever have to answer to.
Blessings, Dazzling Dolly Lutz
Joel,
Great advice ...
Seems I spend more than two hours "filtering" email a day!
Taking the time to do what you have done and following your great advice here will take some TIME - but - in the long run save me HOURS everyday!
As always, man ... Thanks for sharing!
- Mark Call
Good strategies Joel, but one thing is lacking...
On #4, you mention that you can't respond to everyone. That's fine. But you should provide direction to those who are indeed awaiting response. For example, about a week ago I sent you an invitation to speak at a conference. Never heard back.
Here is what I would like to know...and probably many others are curious as well:
Should I assume that the invitation was not worthy of a reply and move on with my life, or should I "resend" it because I think you would be a perfect fit for the presentation and perhaps you just didn't see the invite?
Hmmm....
Joel you are right, the info overload is very time consuming for all of us... I try to manage emails with less success but I pick up some ideas...
I don't want to unsubscribe to your blog as you always deliver substance... but I'll shorten the list of e-mails even though this is a slap in the face of beginners... and I hate to do this, so it is more complicated then it looks.
Thanks
Michey
Very good advice this is happening to more of us than one would think.We really do need to take control of our email so we can use our time productively Thank you for all this valuable and worthy words of advice. We are so blessed to have men such as Joel.
great health and wellness to all
Andrew
I'm guessing having to deal with mass texting is next but this post is a great encouragement to keep pleasing Him as priority instead of trying to keep everyone else happy. If you do that most will end up happy in the end anyway. Thanks for a great post.
Joel,
First, thank you for your common sense and inspiring emails. Just the other day a friend and I were discussing this very thing and I too have taken a blade to my emails. Your #1 tip was foremost on my own in box. I noticed that I was receiving the 'same' email from multiple sources (took me long enough to figure that out eh?) I unsubscribed all of those so called 'guru' mailings and made a huge difference in my in box almost immediately. Yes segmenting and 'folders' or labels as Google calls them is a key tactic to organizing once the junk is filtered out.
My own email in boxes became so cluttered recently that I threatened email bankruptcy, unable to read it all, the easiest tactic was simply to archive it, without reading. However, better sense took over and I spent some time doing the much needed brutal clean up!
Joel:
Some good suggestions here. I do like the idea of just dealing with an email once. Now If I could just have the discipline to follow through.
One trick I have used is to have a domain name that I use strictly for new mailing lists. I create an email address for each new list. Once I determine that I want to remain on the list and that I am not receiving spam at that address I will change the email address to my regular one. If I find that I am receiving a lot of spam at the address I can just delete the address and be done.
hi Joel,
looks like we do some of the same things to manage our emails, I use Thunderbird and I not only have tons of folders and message filters, I also have multiple email addresses I use to filter my emails. support@yourdomain.com, for example would be used for customer support and I also have an email at my domain dedicated to my mailinglist and one dedicated to the email lists I've subscribed to.
Ben the Anti-Guru
#4 is important, but don't excuse your OK decisions!
Joel, great message. Glad to see I'm not alone. Looks like many of us are in the same boat. I always have 30-60 emails sitting in my in-box so that I can stay on top of them as reminders. But I've started making dated folders of "to-do's", and if I don't get time to go back to them, then they're gone. I have removed myself from other email lists, but if I have to get down to just one that I keep, it will be YOURS!! Keep pleasing "Him". You are awesome, and you have shaped so many of our businesses with your wisdom.
Kathy "KC" Colvin
I'm doing the same here too!! Over the years I've subscribed or been added to hundreds of mailing lists. Like you, I save most of my incoming and some of my outgoing emails. I have a "pending" folder where I put things I wanted to read later that numbers in the tens of thousands at this point, which I will probably mass delete and pray there wasn't something still pertinent in there. I'm now making a point to unsubscribe from at least one mailing list each day so I can reduce my incoming email from around 300 each day to something more manageable. And I will be hiring a virtual assistant to delegate some email management to. Thanks for the great post Joel!!
CD's make a great place to back up email to and delete it from a server, or at least a home computer. then if you need to you can always restore it. I was actually thinking of dedicating a 1tb drive to hold all of my email and simply index it once in a while to ensure things stay searchable. At the cost of storage now it makes more sense to archive than to keep active as the more email in active databases, the slower email response time becomes. Microsoft has this problem, Apple has this problem and of course there is the ever expanding problem of duplicate messages...
Okay, time for a drink of coffee.
Very practical message here. I really like this because I am lately finding myself swimming in a sea of unwanted emails.
Thanks Joel
-Matt
I agree with your email problem. I get so many emails I cannot get to them. Most are worthless sales gimmicks. I spend a lot of time deleting them.
Joel you do not get deleted. I read yours.
I am not in your league, by any means but I find you informative, amusing and nice. Thus I read your emails.
I really look forward to them.
Hi Joel: I like what you say. Around 4 months ago I removed myself from alot of lists and sales type messages. It worked, and I am no longer pestered by those messages ...but now I am being innundated (1000 messages per day) by emails selling codiene, hydrocodone, percocet, etc. from Eastern Europe with no way to stop the messages. I'm afraid I'll have to discontinue my email account and let all my business contacts know that I have a new address. It's highly frustratein, because I really get use of my email account.
Joel,
I have been going through the same process over the last several weeks. I was deleting the majority of the emails I was receiving and know I could opt out of most of them.
It frankly has been very time consuming. I can't figure out how I managed to get on so many different lists. It actually takes a lot of work to get off.
Its a good point to remember when you either have or you are building an email list. Many people get on your list and might read your emails. If they are not going to read them then they should unsubscribe. But I would guess that many do not just because it takes time to do that. So instead they just delete the email.
So we need to be sure to provide value and the information that our market wants in order to get more emails read.
Thanks Joel for all you do.
Peter Brissette
The Digital Marketing Dude
Hi Joel!
I am so grateful to get that of your email. Imagine, usually I don,t delete my messages, only if I,ll be getting to be very angry. But interesting, that those emails which I thought to be valid , after checking them were not valid. Only my zeneszerzo@citromail.hu was accepted to be valid only.
I think I need to read across that of your email more occasions to learn from you how to handle my emails. Sometime I am in despair how unorganised I am. Thank You very much for your message again. I wish the Bests for You!
Joel,
It's good to clean up the email system and set filters to reduce what you see. I took many of those steps about 8-9 months ago including get off most IM'ers list (but not yours... yet).
I met Daven Michaels this weekend while helping Jeff Mills run his Boost Seminar here in Minnesota. Daven shared how he handles email using a VA. All his email goes to her and she takes care of the majority of the messages. Then once each day she copies the ones he needs to be aware of or that need his input into one email and sends it to Daven. He says it only takes a few minutes for him to review it, reply to her and he is done with email for the day.
This may be a good next step for you and others who get tons of messages that they need to know about and reply to. Of course, a person would need to take the steps you have already taken so as not to have your VA going over hundreds of useless messages.
Henry
Hi Joel.
I know you use a Mac, but a bit of advice for your Windows users is that if you're sick of Outlook, which I found unbearably slow and buggy, try Thunderbird.
Also, rather than using your hosting company's email address, switch your mail to Google Apps. Basically, it's Gmail but with YOUR domain name. Gmail does a great job of helping you filter your email automatically.
Keep up the good work, Joel.
-Mark Widawer
http://www.TrafficAndConversion.com
Great post Joel and oh sooo true.
I have already had to admit not just to myself but everyone, that there does come a time where you need to do your housecleaning. In my case it didn't apply to just email, but my business as a whole. There comes a time that it can become unmanageable and things quickly can get out of hand and that leads to a lot of trouble like a snowball rolling down the hill.
It was a very big lesson I had only partially learned and I guess I needed to learn the rest the hard way, but now I have safeguards in place :)
Thanks for sharing.
Xavier
I fall into the trap of getting my emails on my cell phone. It comes in handy but ultimately the messages don't get deleted. So when I do sit down at a computer, I will have hundreds of unread messages. Having said that I think it is time to UNSUB some of my lists that I am on. Don't really need to read about a clickbank loophole that will make me $377,982.14 in 2 days.
Joel I know you would never do this...
However it would be interesting to test out an autoresponder with a link to a Fiverr.com gig.
"I will respond to your email for just $5.00. I promise I will give your email my full attention and provide a sincere response."
Hmm.. Replyr.com is available..
jOEL,
I agree. I receive about 500 emails daily. I would like to solve this problem more thoroughly some day, if I had the time.
Here are a few ideas off the top of my head.
First of all I am using Outlook Express. I am used to this and don't wish to change - maybe I should try a different eMail provider?
1.) Could a different or additional eMail service.
2.) Can many different accounts.
Unfortunately this creates the problem of having to log on to each one separately! Don't like that idea-timely.
2.) Use filters to help sort.
3.) Sort by hand
4.) What I actually do:
Create separate eMail files such as
a. affiliates (marketeers)
b. personal
c. read soon
d. read later
e. undecided
f. Company Websites
g. News letters
h. jokes/pictures
f. Deleted files
g. must save. (where payments, passwords etc. can go for now)
h. downloads (free stuff)
i. etc....
You get the picture.
The first time through, I just get them in the correct folders.
This does make for easier eMail management.
Then I inspect each folder to sort further.
When time permits (not often) I copy some of this info (like non-ebook lessons and interesting stuff to a One-Note Notebook - This is very handy and can further categorize these at a later date. One thing nice about using One-Note is that it automatically inserts a link where it came from for future reference.
Your affiliate friend,
Andy@BestChoiceEbooks.com
P.S. Here is a helpful tip to pass down to all readers regarding eMail security.
http://www.bestchoiceebooks.com/2030_securityemaileveryoneread.html
3.)
Finally someone writes about this, a big problem of mine for at long time. My inbox is getting out of control and I defintely has to do something about it. Maybe this post will serve as inspiration. I will try at least two of your advices, make a folder system and unsubscribe to every newsletter that I don't need. Let's see if I will succeed... Anyway, thanks for the great post.
Joel,
Thank you for the post. Unsubscribing from unnecessary e-mail lists is crucial to keeping your e-mail under control! By getting rid of all of those e-mails, you're not as overwhelmed, not to mention less likely to miss out on important e-mails that you DO need to check.
In addition to getting your e-mail under control, I'm interested in finding out if you have a routine for checking e-mail (e.g. twice a day). Do you have any particular strategies for this?
Justin
I'm working on building up my brand so I can fill my inbox. Hopefully, within the next year I will have the same problem. I find the Socrates Theme very easy to use.
Brian
Yes, that's exactly how most of the internet marketers are all facing with their email. Tons of newsletter comes in everyday either from your regular email or junk mail box.The delete button is the most pressed button besides the click button.Messages comes in everyday and not of them are useful. Sometimes I think we became a prisoner of our own email especially we have to do business by checking it everyday. I wish I can find a way that I don't have to worry about my leads and traffic in the future. So that I can enjoy all the benefits from the autoresponder. But of the time being, email is still important for any person who needs to do business online.I think the more successful internet marketer will enjoy more freedom once they find their business is already fully automatic and checking email will be less imoportant for them.I hope I can be one of this successful internet marketer someday in the future too.But for now,too bad,checking all the emails are still a headache in my everyday life.
Yeah I hear you, even as a newbie I am finding it hard to keep up with my email, even just figuring out what to delete. I was off for a week and still haven't caught up!
Hi Joel - I was referred over here by a comment by Lynn Terry on the same subject - and it looks like many, many of us who have been online a long time are experiencing the same thing.
I actually have fairly good control over my emails - I started working on that over a year ago.
HOWEVER - now I got incredibly caught up into social media and particularly Facebook - and realize that I'm spending 1 to 2 hours or more daily of time I would have been paying attention to my business.
That is something that I am working on now, trying to get my Social Media under control.
Thanks for the post!
Diana
Joel,
So true but all mine merges in to 2 gmail account so it makes things a bit easier.
It must take me an hour o2 to go through it.
I love the fact that Gmail can instantly put emails into folders. That's a time savor.
Thanks
Gina
Once again, AWESOME advice. A few months ago, I absolutely couldn't keep up with my mail. As I still try to answer every email, deleting was not an option. What I did do was improve my file system. In addition to that, there are newsletters I love to read, but don't always have the time to read them right away. I set up an email address specifically for these newsletters and changed my subscription info. This way they are not staring at me in my Inbox, I no longer have to take the time to sort, and I can read them at my leisure. Thanks for some more great tips to tighten it up even further.
You should use auto email filtering and foldering.
It's time to use Google Apps and get rid of desktop mail client. It's slow and insecure. Just plug in a pendrive and I can get all the email inside any email clients without logging in to windows account. Worst off, anyone can download such tool in the Internet for free.
Really a very good article how you can handle email masses!
I was in a similar situation, didn't know what I should do with all these mails and they didn't get less!
So my fried advised me an search tool, though it is only for Outlook! But if you use Outlook and don't know how to control your mails, a search tool could be the solution! It is better than search folders, because you just type in what you are searching for (mail, contact, attachment) and you get it! I promise you this will save you so much time!!
Oh by the way I use the tool Lookeen! It is excellent, a desktop search is also included!
Testversion here: http://www.lookeen.net
Joel - I left a comment on 25 October and wrote a post "Taking control of your e-mail" in which I provided three tips while listing 9 folders that work for me.
Hope it's useful to you and to others who have responded to your post. http://growingclients.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/taking-control-of-your-email/
Incidentally, Google Desktop is an excellent search tool for finding anything on one's laptop.
Albert
Great I am putting your RSS into my email blog Keep it up because you bring up things I think of and forget (my senior moments) and then tickle the gray matter.
Thanks Joel
Andy's Solution(s) to the "EMAIL Swamp Problem"
Create multiple accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc.
Create multiple names on each account (some sites may not allow this)
Purchase a completely separate third party email account ($$)
Problem with the above is - too time consuming switching to all these.
I Suggest redirecting all your email to ONE chosen account (can use filtering here)
Cox service provider allows up to 6 email boxes on one I.P address (can use different names)(also 6 Free Websites are allowed-not many people know this!)
I suggest the use of Pseudo Names as first name when you sign up to something online such as FREEman (for free stuff), NEWSom (for news), etc. If the sender uses a First Name sent to you in a return, you'll see it.
Create eMail Files with meaningful groups. -SEE http://BestChoiceEbooks.com/andysplaypage.html