Today’s guest post comes from Jim in Clark’s Grove.
Have you noticed a big increase in advertisements coming to you by email? I didn’t mind it when there were only a few because they might be the only messages that were there when I checked my mailbox. Their presence confirmed that my email was still connected. Now I must be getting 20 or 30 or more unwanted advertising messages every day. I don’t have to wonder if my email is working.
How did all of these advertisers get my address?
On one or two occasions I have been persuaded to follow up on one of those promises of getting something free which required me to type my email address into a box on a web site. I suppose that might account for at least some of the ads. I didn’t get the things that were offered but apparently they got my address and have passed it around. I should have known that a free laptop computer was too good to be true.
I suppose my response to those offers has caused some people to think I am a candidate for all kinds of sleazy things. I’m not really looking to meet up with hot single women and I don’t know why they think I would want a special kind of bra. I have been told that I can earn a fortune working from home. I also get a bunch of offers for home improvement services. I would like to tell the vinyl siding and window replacement people that I live in a cave.
There was a time when I let ads stay in my inbox for several days. Now I delete unwanted stuff very soon after I get it, but sometimes I accidently trash what I really want to keep. As a result, I am afraid to empty out my file of deleted messages because there might be something in there I do not really want to lose.
How do you manage your email?
Trail Baboon 
Let very few companies or charities of any sort get my email.
Never sign up for anything requiring my email, such as register new products by card instead of by email.
Have two other email addresses for when I have to use an email for some business thing.(Open those only every week or so and throw it all right away.)
Unsubscribe right away to what I can avoid having come in.
Open no emails of a suspicious nature.
Open attachments only from things of which I am very sure indeed.
Open and read or throw all emails on first sight, throwing most ads without even opening.
Put everything I want to keep in four named files I have on my email desktop so my inbox is usaully close to empty.
Empty my main email address trash every night,
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This is what I should do
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I also empty my email at least daily. Items that I may want for a later reference get moved into the Draft file. I have a 20-limit rule; never have more than 20 items in In or Sent files.
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Good to have rules
I hereby proclaim a 300,000 limit
Thanks cb I feel better
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I’m with you, tim – limits are good, and 300K seems about right. 🙂
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That’s too loosey goosey for me, my limit is 250.000.
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Oh no! I’m only up to a little over 1,000. I’m under preforming by a lot.
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Slacker.
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clyde and i are polar opposites. i get real good protection (comodo is free) i look at what is important and delete some stufff but mostly just look at the things that applu and let the rest go to past emails. i have 83000 emails in my inbox and if i wonder about a company who i talked with 5 years ago i type something in the search box and up they come anlong with a couple other unrelated things but at least i know they are int here somewhere.
i get lost in email and if i spend time to clean it out i get sidetracked and a minute, an hour, an afternoon, a weekend a quarter and a lifetime have been sucked out of me all in the name of looking at emails.
i dont respond to stuff that is obviously spam and trash but i do type in querries on items of interest and love to see what shows up in reply. i think some of those bra options are things you should consider jim. hot babes…not so much. my office manager is the guy who i forward the items i am interested in to and he files them int he spot that allows us to find them when two years form now we have a reason to look it up. i am alays amazed that the organazation he provides cuts down so substantially on hunting through my nest but on occasion i pull out a gem he didnt have in his nice neat file and i make a fistfull of money for the cause and justify paying 50 bucks a year to back up all my files for eternity with whoever that is that saves your fiels in a cloud somewhere. if the world comes to an end and the exterrestrial life from 2 million light years away look at my collection of cloud files they will ahve a bit of head scratching to do. i could help but not until i get on the starship headed their way with a bit of time to sort through the spam but wait what was that add about from victorias secret??????
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This is sort of what I do.
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Are you on on her secrets, now, then?
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If you’ve seen one you’ve seen them both
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When I was a teenager I acquired a rubber stamp that said “Your junk mail was so interesting, I thought you would like it back.” As a young adult, I would occasionally take a particularly offensive missive and mail it back to the company in their postage-paid envelope. Not sure what ever happened to that stamp, but even if I had it, not nearly as much junk mail comes with postage paid envelopes any more!
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Oh, didn’t actually answer the question. I have two emails… one work, one personal. I think of my Inbox as my “to do list”, so I like to keep it clean. If the Inbox is longer than a page long, it starts to bother me. At work, everything gets saved (junk mail almost never gets through at work) – in a series of folders, one for each of my various programs. At home I delete with a vengeance!
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I was describing my retired-man email system. At work, like you, I saved, about 75% I would say, all or anything business related was filed and kept. When I retired they retired my email account in the company that reluctantly inherited me and my emails. The techie told me my email account listed 32,000 items before he threw out the whole account.
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I keep a lot records from the work I did. I didn’t save most of those records on my computer because I was afraid that they would be lost. I never did anything to backup my computer records other than printing out a copy of anything I thought should be saved. I am slowly getting rid of all those paper copies of my records and still have a lot of them that I no longer need. I’m not sure how many records I stored. I don’t think it came close the 32,000 records you had filed on your business computer, Clyde.
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At the end most were not on my computer but at the company pre-cloud cloud. I now have everything that matter on one cloud or another. With my small inheritance, if this comes through (long story now), I will buy a Kindle Fire, which gives me another cloud. I did just buy a new Cannon. It came yesterday. Today I will go try it out. Very nice telephoto for not that much money.
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How was it
Cannon is a great name in value in cameras today
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Since I started a blog I get lots of emails through WordPress, but they have the content that matters in the title line.
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Recently I have been getting a lot of email from groups asking me to sign petitions or send messages to my representatives in government. For the most part I am glad to get these emails and I do sign some of the petitions an do sometimes let my representatives know that I agree with the positions found in these emails. It has got to point where I can’t even carefully read all of the emails of this kind that I get because they now come from at least 10 sources. I usually respond to the ones I get from 350.org and from Just Foreign Policy and there are some others that I respond to fairly often.
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OMG, tim, 83,000 emails in your inbox, I’m impressed!
I’m not sure “manage” is the right word to describe how I deal with my email account. Most personal emails I tend to delete as soon as I have read and responded to them. Most junk mail I dispose of without opening, but some I look at; depends on my frame of mind and what else is on my agenda at the moment. I get a lot of cooking related emails. The ones that are trying to sell me cooking gear, I delete; don’t need no more cooking utensils or gadgets. Recipes, on the other hand, I tend to save if it’s something that I would conceivably ever want to cook. Unlike Clyde, I do a lot of “business” on line. I pay virtually all of my bills on line, and I also buy a fair amount of stuff via the internet.
I have roughly 1,000 emails in my inbox at the moment. Every so often I’ll go through and weed out stuff that I no longer need, but inevitably, a few days later I’ll be looking for something that I have tossed. It’s ironic how that works; have had the exact same experience with stuff that I’ve gotten rid of because I thought I no longer needed it, and a short while later had a problem that the disposed of item would been the perfect solution to. You just never know.
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
Well, Jim, which is worse? Paper junk mail or email spammie stuff? Maybe there is no worse–maybe it is all irritating and without worth.
I have a gmail account which is only for commercial deals and access to email when I travel. My other account through an internet communications company is what I use for work, my work website, and personal correspondance. The internet company operates a spam screen which is so effective and helpful. This allows me to function in a spam-free place of relative safety.
However, Jim, if you will give me your email account I will start forwarding to you all the chain letters assuring good luck, prayers for the future, and monetary success. You will just love me for all those good wishes and demands that you forward them to 10 of your closest friends.
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In my opinion, paper junk mail is far worse, it wastes so many resources, and unless you recycle it immediately, it takes over the house. The spam stuff, irritating though it is, stays in one place and doesn’t take up physical space. Spam me all you want, my spam filter catches most of it, but please quit sending all that regular junk mail.
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You don’t need to go to the effort of forwarding the good luck assurances, prayers, and other stuff like that, Jacque. I appreciate your willingness to send me that stuff, but I think I already get enough wonderful messages like those.
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Our internet provider has a spam screen, too, that really helps. At work, the State of ND IT Department has a pretty effective spam screen, as well. OT- we are off to Bismarck today for daughter’s 4th and last All-state choir concert. She gets a plaque for four years of participation. She is very excited.
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Congratulations to daughter, and safe travels to all.
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I am not sure I want a spam screener. I guess there is one in place on my computer and all I have to do is indicate that I agree that various mail I get should be screened out as spam. I don’t do this because I’m not sure how it works and I’m not sure I want any mail screened out as spam. I can screen it out myself by deleting it. On another computer I did request spam screening and some mail went into spam that I wanted to see and didn’t see because it went to spam. When I found out that there was mail in spam that I might want to see, I had check the spam file regularly as well as my inbox and I didn’t like doing that.
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That sounds like a fun day, Renee – enjoy!
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congrats renee and daughter. 4 years in the all state choir. you should take a picture next to the tree.
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I thought we would just take a photo next to the lake.
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When did North Dakota get a lake?
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Oh,we got the lake about the same time we got all those snow-capped peaks in the Red River Valley. It is on loan from the Corps of Engineers.
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What is this “manage” thing you speak of?…Theoretically I manage my inbox, sort of. I have a bunch of smart folders that filter emails into them based on a set of rules (emails from these non-profits, emails from this group of friends, etc.) – that makes it easier to delete stuff I don’t want en masse when I decide to clean up my email of a Saturday night (usually while watching a DVD). Thank heavens for the search function in my work inbox or I’d never find the emails I need – I used to be able to keep on top of my work email, but in my fine new job I get the same amount of email sometimes in an hour that I used to get in a day. Yikes.
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I am glad to hear I am not alone
I was looking for something and I had to go back 500 emails to find a message from 3 days ago
Yikes is right
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I also use the search function a lot. Many of my co-workers have massive numbers of folders in their programs and in their emails — not me, because then I have to remember which folder it went into. So I dump all emails into the program folder, no subfolders, and if I need something I do a search. Much more efficient for me.
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25 years ago I took Franklin Planner training–a good program, much of which I already knew and some already did. They trained on mail (pre-email era) and some other things, to touch everything you could only once. So go through the mail, read what you can now and be done with it, throw what you can now, and set aside in a structure system only what really matters.
The tech leader in our company, who’s middle initials are AR, I bet has every email he ever received in a structured and cross-referenced system. His graphic designer wife I bet has every emial she has ever received with the business stuff in a semi-ordered system and her personal stuff in chaos.
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Aaaah…. this may be why we have similar styles…. I also had the Franklin training… at about the same time, when I was still back at Software, etc.
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About 20 years ago I was part of a group that flew out to Pennsylvania to meet with the Franklin Planner people. Their paper-based planner system was being largely replaced by PDAs and they were hoping we could suggest creative ways to revitalize the paper planners. Although we came up with plenty of entertaining suggestions, the underlying problem- the one they weren’t willing to confront-was that their business was built on selling packets of printed and punched paper, the specialized organizer inserts, at an exorbitant markup and even in the area of paper planners less expensive generic brands had severely cut into their business. Does anyone still use Franklin Planners? I never did.
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I never used the planner. I gave it away. I was sent as a cooperative thing between teachers and administrators. Nobody needs a planner of that sort less than a teacher. So much of a teacher’s workday is structured for them by periods and textbooks and units and such. And it would not fit how I work. The planner helped three administrators I know. It was the wise use of time part that helped me.
Don’t know how Franklin/Covey is doing. Covey is too grandiose and simple minded for my attitudes. But B & N sells lots of paper planner/calendars I notice.
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franklin was great then covey came in and tried to merchandise. they are asking for big dollars for relatively simple stuff and the non brand names can furnish the calendar without the cost. franlin is a left over dinosaur form the past us old timers pass on to our young pups and they dont care and go to outlook or the equivilant with ease and no understanding of the basic principles
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I’m a Daytimer gal myself, even having been through the Franklin training. I’ve given a smidgen of thought as to what I will do if Daytimer folds as I’m more than aware that paper-based planning is headed to Dinosaur Valley.
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i love the franklin training and i have been aware of the consequences for not following the plan. i have a gy who does this for me at present. if he ever left i would be sunk but for now i can use his fantastic organazation skills to cover me. i still use the prioritizing from franklin and i dont delegate that one.
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I have a personal email address, a business address and a dead end address I use whenever I need to give an address but never want to hear from the company or service again. My business email is all business, since I never use in for anything except business communication. I never see spam or solicitations of any kind on that address. My personal email these days is about 75 percent solicitations from nonprofits, 15 percent product offerings and 10 percent correspondence. I suspect that the relative dearth of personal correspondence is in part due to the shift of that sort of communication over to Facebook, and since I have so far refused to sign up for Facebook, I am increasingly out of the loop. So it goes…
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I have signed up for Facebook, but don’t make very much use of it. When I tried to use Facebook to pass on some information I found out that some people who were active on Facebook are no longer making much use of Facebook.
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fb is easily managed, too, by whom you accept and/or let show. I use it because my kids are on it. I have only about 65 friends, only about 40 of whom I allow to show, most of whom seldom post. It has been a way to find a few old friends and former students.For instance a favorite student from class of 77 friended my today. I found out her son married a girl named Alaina and took her husband’s name making her Alaina Laine.
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My kids and many of my friends are on Facebook as well. That’s my point about where communication has shifted and why mine has diminished. There may come a time when I’ll just drink the koolaid and join Facebook as well, but it creeps me out and so far I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it.
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I’m curious, bill, what about it creeps you out? I find it a terrific tool for staying in touch with people you want to stay in touch with.
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If the post office offered to send your mail for free, but with the understanding that they would open it, extract and save the contents, mine it for information about you, make inferences about you based on your associations and make that extracted data available to any entity willing to pay for it, would you agree? That is my view of Facebook. Where do you suppose they get their money?
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Oh my! Guess I don’t share anything on Facebook that I don’t want the world to know about me. It is what it is, and I don’t view it as an alternative to private letters.
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The fact that so much of personal communication has migrated to Facebook is what I find so disturbing and insidious. Facebook is a business disguised as a service. On Facebook, in casual communication, people volunteer personal information they would never provide to a straightforward survey.
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a facebook for billinmpls would cover a lot of sins. they would never know who bill is and if you paid me enough i wouldnt tell them
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My email “management” is pretty much theoretical. I have gmail, and somehow I got onto some spammers’ lists so I get tons of spam, but gmail catches almost every single one of those, so I don’t have to even look at it. If I do get spam in my inbox, I just mark it as Spam and it goes to the Junk folder, and is deleted automatically. Theoretically I use gmail’s label system to label things in my inbox – for instance, anything from the baboons is labelled “baboons.” Theoretically I can add certain emails to my task list, and maybe the calendar, too, but I haven’t gotten in the habit of that. And theoretically, I delete unwanted emails promptly so I don’t find that I still have things like the “coming due” notices from the library six months to a year later – but who am I kidding: I don’t really do that.
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Greetings! I love Gmail, but haven’t figured out how to use all those cool features. Just one giant inbox with everything. I try to delete and unsubscribe from as much as possible, so most stuff I get is of some interest to me. If I don’t have time to read it, I’ll just delete it because I know it’s on the web site newsletter. I don’t open odd emails, don’t forward good wishes from my family, don’t look at pictures or movies embedded in emails from friends — no risky email behaviors. I still have a yahoo email, but I don’t use it anymore. I can’t believe tim has 83,000 emails — yikes!
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Elvis also had trouble dealing with his in box.
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I sometimes think I ought to have a strategy for e-mail management, but I don’t really. I keep all the personal stuff and file it in folders. Other stuff accumulates in giant drifts obscuring the landscape, and I let it sit until it is so old it cannot possibly be relevant anymore, then I delete it….maybe….if I get to it. Unlike paper mail, newspapers, and stuff in your fridge, you can simply avoid dealing with e-mail and get away with it indefinitely.
I peek at the spam folder occasionally. Same old stuff, everyone is sure that I am just dying to meet lonely bored housewives, have Lasik surgery, buy discount toner, obtain pills for various nefarious purposes, or get in on the latest get-rich-quick scheme.
Maybe one of these days I will write some custom filters to reply to spammers just for fun. Such as: if subject line contains “Restore Your Hair”, send reply with a link to a YouTube video of Christine Lavin singing the song about bald-headed men. Or if the subject line contains “LOAN APPROVAL”, reply with a link to the Beatles singing “Can’t Buy Me Love”. I bet baboons could come up with some creative spam comebacks.
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Linda, honestly, you need to get a life! That said, it’s a fun idea if you don’t have anything better to do with your time.
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Because I don’t use a spam filter, all those unwanted ads are in my trash file. It would be interesting to do something with that trash. Apparently my email address has been passed on to many different people who send out this trash. Thus I have in my trash file a very big selection of all kinds rather strange ads as well as some not so strange. They represent some sort of picture of the world we live in.
If one took a close look at that stuff, it might tell you something or it might be the basis for some kind of creative effort. You have come up with one suggestion of what could be done with that stuff, Linda. There might some other interesting ways to create something out of all of those ads
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I can’t think of one right off hand, but like the idea of the Spam comebacks – maybe a separate day’s topic?
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Fun photo and enlightening topic, Jim – is that your mailbox?
I liked it when we had AOL, which would delet whatever you’d left in your inbox once a week. So it made you act fast – either reply or store it someplace. I have a couple dozen folders where I move emails that I want to save (yes, the Baboon blog has one for email addresses, etc.) I keep the Sent folder way longer than I probably should, but I frequently want to remember what I last sent to someone…
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I had a different picture that I found on the internet to use which wasn’t as good as the one Dale found and put in place of the one I found.
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…and I’ve noticed I’m not getting as many cute or “meaningful” forwards as I used to, since much of that has gone to Facebook. But If I get one that says you must send this within ___ minutes to ___ people, it gets deleted immediately no matter how much I like the content. It’s just another version of the abhored chain letter.
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OT – Here’s a post that BiB posted on FB just a few minutes ago. Juju yesterday gave birth to two kids, one dead and one alive. Very sad.
“our sweet Juju died at noon today. the gifts that these generous animals give to us come at a very high cost to them. bless her heart (my all time favorite doe – but aren’t they all?) we have Momo, her 2012 doeling and one beautiful doeling from yesterday’s birthing to carry on. we will name her Viva and Viva’s kids will all have names meaning “life” in different languages. it is trite, but true, to say that Juju looks pain-free and calm again after 19 hours of suffering. bless her heart.”
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thanks pj
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