
A Super-Efficient Email Process - nreece
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/05/a-super-efficient-email-proces.html
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Fuzzwah
I have a super efficient email process;

1) use gmail 2) any email which is important I click on and read 3) everything
else remains unread

Most of the time I can get everything I need from an email from what is shown
in gmail's inbox view. I currently have 8,212 unread messages in my inbox. I
like seeing that number get bigger and bigger, as it is a kind of score board
of how much time I've saved by not using a process similar to the one
described in this submission.

Why spend time manually archiving when I'm just going to search to find
anything from the past anyway....

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Wickk
Hi, it's called filters that take 2 seconds to setup.

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Fuzzwah
But then I have to click into separate folders to view the same emails which I
currently take in on a single page?

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Wickk
I'm going to take a wild guess that a large bulk of those 8K+ emails needs to
be sent straight to the trash.

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Fuzzwah
Possibly 25% of them. But why? Its more time efficient to just leave them
there. You seem to be missing my point :)

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Wickk
I just hate having unecessary cruft personally. I need to organize everything

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qznc
1\. Disable notifications and process emails in bursts.

2\. Re-enable notifications as necessary. For me only emails from my boss fall
in this category.

Most advice focuses on the first rule, but the system does not really work
without the second rule. The second rule provides peace of mind, because you
will not miss important things by not looking into your email client. This in
turn enables you to make larger pauses between bursts.

A corollary rule: Train your "non-necessary" contacts to use the phone for
time-critical messages.

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exDM69
Who would have thought 15-20 years ago that e-mail would turn out to be a
hindrance to productivity, not a booster. Perhaps it's that e-mail is too easy
to send so people do it even when it wouldn't be necessary or there would be a
smarter way to communicate. So many people end up with thousands of e-mails a
day, only a few of which are important.

It's hard to assess the overall effects of e-mail vs. productivity, though.

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mark_integerdsv
Administering administration much?

