
Email sucks. Time saving tips from Kevin Rose - bjonathan
http://kevinrose.com/blogg/2010/8/17/email-sucks-5-time-saving-tips.html
======
dotBen
The biggest issue is you have to work out how important email is to what you
do + achieve. If you are a developer, it's probably a distraction.

If you are a founder, entrepreneur or similar then your (filtered, non-spam,
non-bacn) email is contextual to your business relationships and actually
prioritizing your time to properly tend to it is important.

This whole "I have over 1000 unread emails, oh my!" crap just feels like bad
email management and poor time keeping.

I filter away all twitter/facebook/plancast auto-notifications, intentionally
avoid mailing lists unless there is an RSS option and keep very on top of spam
using similar email address tricks (I tend to use <foo>@<mydomain> but it's
the same deal).

So with the Spam and Bacn taken care of, I actually am left with a very
manageable amount of ham ('real') email every day and so I set aside the
appropriate amount of time to deal with it because it is all high-value
messages.

Things work out fine, relationships are founded/maintained and I don't have to
email people automatically telling them I couldn't be bothered to read their
email in 14 days - which would make them look unimportant and me look like a
bit of a douche.

~~~
webwright
"This whole "I have over 1000 unread emails, oh my!" crap just feels like bad
email management and poor time keeping."

I'd wager he gets hundreds of emails per day from random people, some of whom
could actually be important. This is in addition to internal email lists at
his company, VIPs, etc. I get dozens and I'm quite a bit less public/important
than Kevin Rose.

Say he gets the following daily:

30 messages from people he knows 150 emails from fans, strangers, some of whom
might be worth responding to 50 internal company emails that merit SOME
attention

That's 220 emails per day to process. Say 150ish on the weekends, so he has
300+ to process every morning. Now say he takes a 1 week vacation.

Call it an average of 1 minute per email for processing (some are near 0, some
need to be scanned, some need to be carefully read, some require short
replies, some require longer replies). That's 4+ hours per day.

What he needs is an assistant to go thru the "I don't know you" pile to see if
there is any "ham".

~~~
dtby
_some of whom_

I hope you meant some of which.

------
theycallmemorty
GMail users: If you find a site that doesn't like the + character, you can
also use strategically placed periods to help direct spam. myemail@gmail.com
and m.y.email@gmail.com are all routed to the same account. Just create rules
based on the address you give to friends and the one you give to potential
spammers.

~~~
avar
I liberally sprinkle my address everywhere (here it is again, spammers:
avarab@gmail.com) and I don't have a spam problem. I get at most 2-4 messages
per week that make it through GMail's spam filters.

Those are all glaringly obvious spam though, to the point that I've begun
suspecting that they're just using me to confirm that suspected spam really is
spam.

~~~
kalid
I agree -- I rarely (few times per week) receive spam to my main inbox.

I used to obfuscate my email address, but realized it doesn't matter. Spammers
will get at you no matter what (unused email addresses get spam), and
obfuscation just annoys people who would like to contact you. I let GMail do
its job.

~~~
uxp
I once ran a grep on my personal postfix mailserver's logs. Turns out I would
constantly 550 bounce spam for email addresses that didn't exist for my
domains. Thousands of connections a day, all looking for adam@, barry@,
charles@... and down an alphabetical list.

That, on top of the relay requests, would fill up a single day's logfile 5
times faster than authorized traffic.

~~~
mike-cardwell
This is why I stopped using firstname@domain and started using
firstname.surname@domain. Tends to stop the dictionary attacks from working.

------
Groxx
I've been noodling with an idea for a while, and maybe this is a good time to
see people's responses:

We have Spam filters. Why not Content filters? (ok, a ham strainer)

I want unlimited, user-defined bayesian filters for my email. Flag everything
political-sounding, and have it (reasonably accurately) filtered - no more FUD
chain letters in your main inbox! Flag anything funny - get a humor folder.
Flag everything that's a bug report - get a bug report folder. Ultimately, you
have an auto-sorting tagging system defined by your needs.

I'm primarily thinking it'd work for people with high-to-very-high email
volume, as then the filters would have enough to learn from. But even if it's
somewhat inaccurate, pre-sorted mail would be _extremely_ useful to me - you
just have to correct it occasionally, instead of correcting it _every_ time.

\---------

More on-topic, the single-most-useful thing I've done to manage my inbox has
been to make a "this week" query-based folder. Far fewer things fall out of my
attention that way, because it's a reasonable amount to scroll over if I've
got a bit of time - something I _never_ did when I had 3k+ in the same view.

~~~
jgrahamc
See [http://blog.jgc.org/2010/08/solving-kevin-roses-email-
proble...](http://blog.jgc.org/2010/08/solving-kevin-roses-email-problem.html)

~~~
Groxx
Oooh, I'll have to look into that, thanks.

I'm personally planning on developing my own at some point ("learning"
programs fascinate me), but that might fit the bill in the meantime (probably
a few years...).

------
jakevoytko
All of these tips are generalizations of the same idea: with email, nobody
grabs your attention without your consent. This is a new idea in society - you
could always get someone's attention by finding them in person, and you could
usually reach someone on the telephone. Call screeners and security guards are
expensive, so only a few people had them. But now, I can just open up my GMail
preferences and have my mail prioritized, flagged, tagged, deleted, and
archived without lifting a finger. And malevolent emails are filtered out by
someone else! At the end of the day, effectively dealing with email is like
programming - when something sucks, automate it.

------
pxlpshr
Tip 6. Stop routing a ton of noise into your primary email accounts, use
something like OtherInbox.com for trivial stuff such as Twitter and Facebook
notifications.

~~~
philwelch
I just don't let any of that crap get into my email, personally. Facebook,
Twitter, and other low-priority sites I check on a case-by-case pull basis--I
don't need to be notified if something happens on those sites, because if it's
really important the person can email me themselves and if it isn't important
it can wait until I have time to waste.

------
roc
If you get that much email you have issues larger than what you do with those
thousand emails. The root problem is that you _got_ a thousand emails. Address
_that_.

e.g. Instead of address+foo@domain.tld - try not signing up for shady lists in
the first place. Has anything of value come out of a newsletter from a dicey
web site?

~~~
jacquesm
Your comment might be on topic if it wasn't for who the writer of the article
is. It's not unlikely that simply by being himself and having an email address
he's going to receive that thousand emails and there is no easy way to address
that short of changing identity or to stop using email altogether.

Shady lists probably are not his main problem.

~~~
roc
And people in that unique situation should hire assistants.

------
gcv
Curious: how many of those thousands of messages are actually personal and
worth reading? How many are notifications from stores, social sites, and so
on? (Programmers only:) How many are notifications from your apps, giving you
updates about processes you're running?

I find it incredibly hard to understand how anyone could have a thousand
personal worthwhile messages coming in every day. I guess an Internet
celebrity (or famous angel investor!) would have a large number of contact
attempts each day, but that counts as work email, right? (The author's post
says "1002 unread personal".)

~~~
chmike
This is also what I would like to know. How many are spams, automatic
notifications, "cold calls" and undesirable personnal sollicitations, mail
sent to him to be in the loop but which are not really relevant to him, etc.

Regarding your second point, I do think it is possible to have many hundred
mails per day of personnal sollicitations which I would call legitimate mails.

When most people cross the street no one cares and they can move freely. If it
is a well known person, like a star, many people will try to talk to him, ask
for something, or whatever to the point they can't move or even become in
danger. So it is possible that some people become overdrawn by legitimate
mails. But this is quite exceptional and concluding from this that "mail
sucks" is not very fair.

It sucks and in many ways, but not because of that type of situation.

------
adavies42
i've been "inbox zero" since i was introduced to email (c. 1994, on my dad's
university vms account). my inbox contains only messages requiring some action
(either reply or something external). everything else goes into the trash
("bacn", e.g. update notices for software i don't use anymore, bank
newsletters, etc.) or into a folder (or is just "archived" in the case of
gmail). i really don't understand why so many people have so much trouble
coping with their email. i used to spot english majors by their enormous
inboxes when i was in college....

~~~
JacobAldridge
I have a similar policy, and a saying that 'as goes my Inbox so too goes my
mind'. Using it, as I do, as a de facto 'to do' list isn't best practice, but
it works for me. When I have <30 messages, I know I'm on top of things.

Currently have 92. Must. Leave. HN.

------
dododo
correction to tip #2: the plus trick (username+foo@example.org) works with
many mail systems not just gmail (as stated). its origins predate gmail.

correction to tip #4: iPhone's append "Sent from my iPhone" not "Sent from
iPhone". i'd notice the missing "my". "Sent from my mobile." is just fine and
probably a better approach.

~~~
greyboy
> correction to tip #2: the plus trick (username+foo@example.org) works with
> many mail systems not just gmail (as stated). its origins predate gmail.

Obligatory note: this doesn't work with all signup forms, unfortunately.

~~~
someone_here
In some email systems like postfix, you can change what the + character is
(like . or _ or even numbers) So you could have username_football@example.com

~~~
chmike
Underscore is not a valid character in user names. Use - instead.

~~~
mike-cardwell
You're confusing "usernames" and "email addresses". Underscores are fine in
the local part of an email address. The following are also valid:

O'Reilly@example.com

"Foo@Bar"@example.com

~~~
chmike
Indeed. Sorry about this. I was confusing local part with domain name. Here is
a blog note providing a detailed information on this.

[http://haacked.com/archive/2007/08/21/i-knew-how-to-
validate...](http://haacked.com/archive/2007/08/21/i-knew-how-to-validate-an-
email-address-until-i.aspx)

------
Splines
This is what I do for my work email:

1\. I create rules for every Exchange DL that I consider important. This is
the first line of defense.

2\. Any email that I receive that I am not in the to or cc line is sent to a
"Check Later" email folder. Either someone bcc'd me, or someone (maybe me)
adding me to a DL that I didn't create a rule for.

3\. My Inbox should contain only mail that is directly to me.

4\. Any mail in my Inbox that is not actionable (either I'm done with it or
it's informational) is filed away.

Of course, these strategies only work for certain people (I'm just a cog in a
machine), but it has done wonders for keeping my Inbox manageable. I rely
heavily on Outlook Search to find mails that I remember seeing but have filed
away (I have a single "I've read these mails and want to keep them" folder).

------
jodrellblank
One thing I've been wanting to mention at HN but don't think is worth starting
a thread for is how bad email is for task / project management, and how much I
think there's room for an alternative.

My running dream is that it would be web based (but not a todo list) and would
be based on the idea of a project built of tasks with definite finishing
points, and subprojects, and the ability to direct other people to them and
ask/answer questions, make notes, verify things and confirm tasks are
complete.

I picture it in my head as Etherpad meets old-school vertical scrolling 2D
games meets Gantt charts meets braiding (
<http://theautry.org/ortega/images/four_string_braid.jpg> ), I guess meets
Google Wave though I've never used it.

The braids go to other people "request input from Alice, then verification
from Bob, then back to me for implementation", and as the "view" scrolls, the
completed tasks are fixed in time and cannot be altered, but can be brought
back up to the front for reattention.

I put it here so I can note it somewhere and because it's related to how
annoying email is to use for ongoing work between people. I'm suspicious that
it's impractical if delved into in any depth, and that the good bits are done
in some existing tracker / helpdesk / ticket / project management software if
I knew how to look for that kind of thing.

~~~
TeHCrAzY
Team Foundation Server from MS could achieve this I reckon (might need a bit
of work to get it exactly how you want).

Or possibly even (I hate to say it) sharepoint.

------
bitdiddle
The best way to reduce the amount of email you get is to reduce the amount you
send. Works like a charm.

~~~
andylenz
+1!

------
crux_
I used to have two places to check for all of that semi-automated "I'd like to
read this but it isn't urgent" material: my email inbox (mailing lists,
newsletters, etc) and my RSS reader.

The fix -- a quick'n'dirty script that moves all those emails over to RSS:
<http://github.com/danshoutis/mail-to-rss>

Caveat: if you're using Google Reader, you need to put the output RSS+HTML
into a non-password-protected place, which means someone who can guess the URL
can read your stuff. (For maximum convenience, I'm just dumping it into the
public folder of my dropbox account.)

It certainly needs polishing, but not so much that I've felt the need to work
on it recently. :)

~~~
mike-cardwell
Seems more sensible to me to filter mailing list mail into its own mail folder
than filtering it into an rss feed. At least when it's in a mail folder you
can reply to it without messing about...

~~~
crux_
It does get filtered into its own folder; it's just that I prefer to read that
folder's contents in Google Reader, along with all my other "feed" stuff, in
one shot.

This is more appropriate if you mostly lurk on mailing lists; if there was a
list I was highly active on, I'd probably treat it differently.

------
qjz
I can think of three tips that are more useful than any of the ones in the
article:

1\. Don't subscribe to mailing lists. Really, don't.

2\. Answer yes or no questions with a yes or a no.

3\. Don't reply if the email doesn't require (or warrant) a response.

------
qthrul
At the risk of double entry...

Regarding 3) VIP filter -- That's how I'm currently using AwayFind [1] with my
GMail in Google Apps. My most frequent VIP filter is {if they reply today} but
for some people I'll do {if they reply this week} and I get a phone call and
it's read back to me. The context and timing is the important thing for me.
The really powerful feature is specific words (optional) but I'm presently
inclined to rely on my own reply behavior to set the tone of my perceived
inbox. It's pretty addicting.

[1] #include 'disclaimer.h' /* I'm an advisor */

------
muppetman
I use the X1 search program to make my life a lot easier. At my office we have
to use Outlook, X1 makes using email like having your own local copy of Gmail.

Doesn't really help with huge volumes of email, but it does help when you have
to find that email you were sent last week along with 7000 other emails.

------
awin
Why not create a mail with a 250 character limit. Or forget the limits,
something like the facebook stream, but a lot more private just like email.
Not sure if such a service exists today..something like a Short Message
Service implemented with email protocols.

------
dalore
Rather then put a +spam on the end I give a unique email out to every place
that asks for it. Then I filter on that "To" address with labels. Makes it
easy to scan.

Then I follow GTD of having an empty email box.

~~~
Tichy
I do that too - the downside is that it actually multiplies the spam, because
my address will be in the spammers lists multiple times.

------
joshu
heh, #4 is from me.

------
newchimedes
Wasn't a big fan of this post. it would have been more interesting if he
showed some examples of his three sentence replies to actual emails. 3
sentence emails sound great in theory, but really after a while if you are
sending such short responses you are just an email mass producing factory.

I've been on the receiving end of some short/terse emails and I have to say
that my impression is not positive. I understand people are busy, but when I
read short replies to emails that don't make sense it doesn't make me feel
special at all :(

------
threnody
I don't read tiny white text on black backgrounds. I don't care who wrote it,
or what it purports to say. Period.

~~~
callahad
Then may I suggest the Readability bookmarklet from Arc90? It's available at
<http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/>

Or you could use Safari 5, which has it built in.

Aesthetics are a terrible grounds upon which to dismiss textual information.

~~~
omaranto
You're right about aesthetics being terrible, shallow grounds for dismissal
but there is one instance I can't bring myself to be sensible about: old math
books that are typewritten with hand-written formulas. I've managed to read
papers that are like but so far refuse to read entire books...

