The 1 tip to save you 60 working days a year ......

[JockP]

Thought I would add this post for those of you who feel like the information is in overload.

So what is equivalaent to 60 days a year work ? answering you emails 4 hours a day = 1460 hours / 24 = 60 days a year. Yep that is right

This was one of the most liberating things that I have ever learnt and has saved me hours each day

That's right, all the crap that comes through your email, whether it be promos, lists products etc.

First of all get yourself a gmail account if you havn't got one.

Second of all.......UNSUBSCRIBE.

all the guru's out there jamming crap down your throat every day

Then...use filters...top right hand box in your email account click on settings, then in the next screen use filters.

I have a folder for all the marketing stuff, receipts, elance work, domains, serials etc.

So the only stuff that goes into my inbox is the high quality stuff that I need.

Then when I am done with the email I archive it so that I can get it at a later date.

There are some days where I get no emails, how liberating would that be ???

How much more work / thinking could you get done ???

Anyway that is my two cents for the day

enjoy the freedom

[hooperman]

So what is equivalaent to 60 days a year work ? answering you emails 4 hours a day = 1460 hours / 24 = 60 days a year.

That sounds like a shed load of mail you were reading! I'm not sure how much time I spend on reading mail, but I think I'm in a lower league. Good tips on using the filters.

On a similar note, if you do a lot of reading - consider learning to speed read. Apparently most people read at 200 words per minute, but with training you can get it up to 1,000 wpm. So if you spend 20 hours a week reading / week like I do, you can get that down to 4 hours. That's equivalent to a saving of 30 days / year (if you have a 6 week hol). Ya beat me!

[leadegroot]

I get a whole bunch of joint venture, list promotion, buy my product email, all to the same address - I signed up to them on purpose, kind of a 'keep my thumb on the pulse of the market', even though I don't do anything like that.
I rarely read that folder, only when I am bored and want to look at something silly for a few minutes.
But apart from that, its all worthless...

[Clinton]

Excellent post, Jock P. And that's a good tip from hooperman.

I sometimes spend more than four hours a day dealing with mail. It's not all spent replying. For example, someone may send me details of a site he'd like to sell. I may spend 10-15 minutes checking the site out before replying to him advising that I'm going to be listing it here in BSTE ...or telling him why I'm not. Then there are all the JV requests, affiliate manager pitches, guest post requests etc etc. The time is spent not just on typing up replies but on reading the mails, doing background checks on the sender/his company, looking at stats and attachments, talking on the phone, or reading up an article somewhere to familiarise myself with what the sender is talking about....

One way to save time is to not check your emails regularly. I saw that tip on webmasterworld some months ago. Saving all your emails and dealing with them together at one fixed time of the day can actually make a big difference. I was doing that for a while and then I lapsed. Must get back to it again. The problem is that it becomes a bit of an addiction to hit the send/recv button!

But great tips. Any one else has a good time saving tip?

[crabfoot]

Nowadays, I use Liquid ID . net to control spam.
Get a free email address, then link it to a liquid ID, and you can get any number of proxy email addresses that forward your mail into your mailbox.

Use a new proxy every time you join a site that may be issuing spam.
If you are getting a lot of spam from one source, you just go to Liquid ID and delete that proxy email.
It's a free service ...

[Dreemer]

Google for "free temporary email` for email addresses you can use for an hour or so. Use these to sign up to get past the gateways for stuff, or to check out forums etc. This really helps with the spam i find.