random strings - filtershttps://blog.randomstring.org/2017-06-12T06:36:42-04:00the one true method of email handling2017-06-12T06:36:42-04:002017-06-12T06:36:42-04:00-dsr-tag:blog.randomstring.org,2017-06-12:/2017/06/12/the-one-true-method-of-email-handling/People are overwhelmed with email.<p>People are overwhelmed with email.</p>
<p>In response, they declare email bankruptcy – that means that they
arbitrarily delete their inboxes and hope the problem will magically fix
itself – or adopt strange methodologies.</p>
<p>Here is the one true method of dealing with email. It works. It
requires some setup. It requires some change in your behavior.</p>
<p>Principles:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Your personal email is private and your work email is not. Your
employer almost certainly has the legal right to read through your work
email. Don’t use it for personal matters, at all. This also saves you
the trouble of telling all your friends your new address when you change
jobs.</p></li>
<li><p>Context is important. Therefore, create folders for friends and
family. It’s possible that you want to automatically file these, but
it’s more important that you save them to a consistent place after you
have read them. (Does your aunt keep forwarding scams? Automatically
file her messages. Perhaps you should talk to her about her
problem.</p></li>
<li><p>You will always have new email. Therefore, turn off any alert
noises, buzzes, vibrations, flashes, notifications, or other devices
trying to get you to respond to routine email.</p></li>
<li><p>Some email actually deserves to wake you up. I can’t tell you
what that will be for you; it is your responsibility to figure out how
to identify it. What I do is set up a second account that I do not use
to send email, don’t sign up for email lists, and don’t tell people
about unless I trust them to wake me up in the middle of the night. That
email account plays annoyingly loud music at me. If you’re lucky, this
isn’t something you need.</p></li>
<li><p>You will always have more low-importance email than you have
high-importance email. (You are the only judge of importance.)
Therefore, you must tell your email system to automatically filter
low-importance email to folders where you will not see it until you
choose to go looking for it.</p></li>
<li><p>You must adhere to your own schedule. Therefore, set aside time
in that schedule to read through the folders that pertain to what you
are doing. If you don’t read a folder, it means it’s not important to
you.</p></li>
<li><p>Context is important. Therefore, every email list that you have
signed up for needs to go to its own folder, automatically, before you
see it. If you want to read it, you need to make the decision to go look
at that folder and read it in the context of other messages from that
mailing list. What should end up in your inbox? Messages from humans, to
you, that you need to see. When you’re done,</p></li>
<li><p>If it’s more than 2 months old, it is less important. Therefore
your computer must have a second tier of folders that are automatically
archived versions of the primary folders. You can pick another age, but
two months works for me: this month, plus the context of last
month.</p></li>
<li><p>History is important. Therefore, learn to use the search
functions effectively to get at the meat of those archive
folders.</p></li>
<li><p>Spam happens. Therefore you will tell your computer to
automatically shunt spam to its own folder. About once a week (or once a
month, depending on how trusting you are) you should review this folder
for mistakes.</p></li>
<li><p>Change happens. Sign up for work email lists with your work
email. Sign up for professional email lists with a personal email
account. You will leave your employer someday, but your professional
reputation should accrue to you.</p></li>
<li><p>Change happens. New email lists, new acquaintances, fading
interest, new topics, whatever. At least once a year, go through your
mail sorting rules and figure out what needs to change.</p></li>
</ul>