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Blog: Technology As An Organizing Tool
 Organize Your Email – Part 2
Last week I shared some ideas on cutting back on the number of messages in your Inbox by deleting those you've read or moving them to an appropriate folder But what about all those messages you haven't read?
Hopefully you manage to read your important messages fairly soon after you receive them. Those are rarely the ones causing the problem here. It's all those other messages, the ones that don't need you to reply or take any kind of action, that typically sit in your Inbox until you "have time" to deal with them.
a) Unsolicited advertising
Unfortunately, although it's illegal, it's a fact of life – if you have an email account, especially one that is posted online, you are going to be sent spam. However, there's no reason for it to clutter up your Inbox. Most email programs have powerful filters built in to recognize these messages and automatically transfer them to a Junk Mail folder. If yours doesn't, or if it's not doing the trick, try Spam Arrest, which does an awesome job of blocking unwanted mail. I've been using it for several months and wish I'd bought it sooner!
b) Newsletters and ezines
For many people, especially information junkies, it's hard to resist the temptation to sign up for yet another newsletter when it's about a topic that interests you, and after all they are free! But if those newsletters are sitting unread in your Inbox, it's time to get realistic about how much time you actually have to devote to this activity. Most of that information can be found online when you need it, so be brave – delete everything that's more than a week old, and consider unsubscribing from any that you tend to skip over more often than not. And don't sign up for any more until you have this situation under control!
c) Jokes and other forwarded items
We all know someone who has too much time on their hands and forwards every joke and inspirational message that they receive, but don't feel you have to read something just because someone sends it to you. Quickly scan the subject line to see if it is of interest, and if not, delete it right away – and don't feel guilty!
If these ideas are too extreme for you, another strategy to consider for newsletters and jokes is to set up separate folders for these messages, and to create Rules or Filters to automatically place them there until you have time to read them. You still have to find time to read them, but at least they aren't cluttering up your Inbox in the meantime!
Next week I'll wrap up this series with tips on organizing your Sent messages.
posted on: 3/27/2008 8:30:00 AM by Janet Barclay
category: Business
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Technology As An Organizing Tool
by Janet Barclay
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Janet Barclay is a Master Virtual Assistant and the founder of Organized Assistant. Specializing in supporting entrepreneurs in the Organizing and Career Services industries, Organized Assistant provides top-notch Internet marketing services to business owners of all shapes and sizes.
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