Taking control of your email inbox (part 1); The good, the bad and the ugly

It’s Saturday, I’m in at the office and I have 350+ emails in my in-box.   Arghhh.    I took a 1/2 day off on Friday to be the helper at my daughters school…so I got behind.  However, 350 emails is just crazy.

Here is approximately how the numbers broken down.

The Good
  • 50 legitimate business emails.  These are client, partners and prospects that I want to communicate with
  • 5 personal emails.
  • 10 alerts from various services
  • 120 LinkedIN invitations.   No problem here, but I don’t need to see these in my inbox.

The Bad
  • 30 invites to various webinars.  Most of these are from legitimate business connections that somehow decided I should go on a general distribution list.

The Ugly
  • 50 requests from other social networks.
  • 75 absolute unwanted spam messages.

Somehow I let my in-box get away from me.  I lost track of best practices.  Anyone with some ideas on managing an out-of-control inbox, I want to hear from you. This blog is part 1. In part 2, I post the solutions & suggestions that I gather over the coming weeks.  Part 2 will only be posted once I get back control of my email inbox.

For those about to send me suggestions.  I already make good use of filters and I have a professional email spam-blocking service that I am happy with.  The spams I am getting are from contacts that somehow make the conceptual leap from being a business connection to putting me on their distribution lists.

Idea: wouldn’t it be nice to have a program that took all webinars and events emails and only shows you ones that fit your schedule?   hmmm

part 2…under development.

 

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