To all the messages I've missed before...
While at lunch today I saw an entrepreneur who reached out to me awhile back. He was cool about the lack of follow-up, but I hate that so many messages fall through the cracks nowadays. My New Year's resolution to clear my inbox monthly has been a complete washout.
I currently have over 11,000 emails in my inbox -- just from this year. I've driven most phone messages to email and I use RSS-to-email for my subscriptions. That allows me to focus on one inbox, but Facebook messages are starting to become a separate inbox that also needs to merge. You can see from my post dates that it's not like blogging is getting in the way of inbox triage. I don't have any great solutions and plenty of others I respect have just declared inbox bankruptcy. I'm not there yet...
If you've reached out to me and didn't hear back, let's try again. My apologies. Also, if you have inbox-overload ideas that have worked for you, I'm all ears...
UPDATE, 09-11-07: While driving this morning I realized that my inbox overload really kicked into overdrive when I got my first Treo a few years ago. That's ironic because you'd think always-on connectivity would help clear my inbox. However, the process of reviewing emails on my Treo AND later having them download to my laptop inbox creates an odd triage issue. Specifically, it introduces the problem that I'm not really filing many emails when first read (on Treo), and I'm less motivated to re-read those emails for filing purposes only when they hit my laptop. I could delete emails from the server when pulling from my Treo, but then I'd create two separate filing repositories. Anyway, I thought the irony was interesting and I'm curious how others have handled inbox triage/filing with laptop and smartphones in the mix.
I currently have over 11,000 emails in my inbox -- just from this year. I've driven most phone messages to email and I use RSS-to-email for my subscriptions. That allows me to focus on one inbox, but Facebook messages are starting to become a separate inbox that also needs to merge. You can see from my post dates that it's not like blogging is getting in the way of inbox triage. I don't have any great solutions and plenty of others I respect have just declared inbox bankruptcy. I'm not there yet...
If you've reached out to me and didn't hear back, let's try again. My apologies. Also, if you have inbox-overload ideas that have worked for you, I'm all ears...
UPDATE, 09-11-07: While driving this morning I realized that my inbox overload really kicked into overdrive when I got my first Treo a few years ago. That's ironic because you'd think always-on connectivity would help clear my inbox. However, the process of reviewing emails on my Treo AND later having them download to my laptop inbox creates an odd triage issue. Specifically, it introduces the problem that I'm not really filing many emails when first read (on Treo), and I'm less motivated to re-read those emails for filing purposes only when they hit my laptop. I could delete emails from the server when pulling from my Treo, but then I'd create two separate filing repositories. Anyway, I thought the irony was interesting and I'm curious how others have handled inbox triage/filing with laptop and smartphones in the mix.
Labels: email, facebook, resolutions, rss, smartphone, treo, voicemail
Posted by VC Dan | 9/10/2007
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Comments (1)
Hi Dan,
I was in the same boat. I had this ridiculous system with my Treo, webmail, and email client. Now, it is all perfect.
I use Webmail.us as my email host. You don't have to use them for this to work, but I've had great experience with them and would recommend them.
However, the key to the formula is an email standard called IMAP. If you use IMAP, your email will be synced between your Treo, your webmail application (if you use one), and your desktop email client (like Outlook).
With IMAP, if you delete an email from your Treo, it's automatically deleted from your email client and webmail. Same thing happens if you reply, forward, etc. It is all synced and VERY useful.
I fought my email before, but this system using IMAP, Webmail.us, etc. (which has been going on for about 5 months) makes it really easy.
Let me know if you have any questions!
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