Email Sucks. 5 Time Saving Tips.

kevinrose.com — My stats:938 unread work emails.1002 unread personal emails. The madness has to stop. What was once a 30 minute annoyance is now my full-time job. Here are 5 time saving tips: #5: Add a http://three.sentenc.es/ email signature and keep them short. "Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since its too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead. three.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be three sentences or less. Its that simple." Example signature: -------------------------------------------- Q: Why is this email three sentences or less? A: http://three.sentenc.es -------------------------------------------- #4: Type "Sent from iPhone" under your short responses. People don't expect long responses when you're on your phone. Don't forget to mispell a few words. This all looks graet +1!!Sent from iPhone. #3: Create a 'VIP' filter. Add your boss, investors, and close friends. Flag them red and throw them in aseparatefolder. This is the first place I check every morning. #2: (Gmail only) Keep the spam out. If you're giving your address to a potentially shady website, tack on +spam to the end, example: yourname+spam@gmail.com. You can then filter those emails into a spam folder you check periodically. (ProTip: the +spam is a variable that can be anything you want, eg. yourname+football@gmail.com etc., make as many as you like) #1: (Apple Mail or similar program) Setup an email bankruptcy filter. This is a little bit of a dick move, but if you're getting hundreds of new emails a day, it just might work. Step 1: Create a filter that auto-responds to all unopened emails > 14 days old w/the following message: Your email (below) is now 14 days old and has not been opened. To minimize email buildup your email has now been placed in the archive. Should you still require a response simply respond back and we'll add you to the priority queue. Thank you. Step 2: Setup another filter that looks for the text "Your email (below)", this will catch the emails responses back to you from those still requiring your response. Filter these into a special folder you check and respond to daily. Good luck! Aug 18, 2010 View in Crawl 4