By Joe Balsarotti
The amount of data on the Internet is staggering. Back in 2011, USC researchers estimated humans had already stored 295 billion gigabytes, and here I am adding to the total with this column. Here in 2016, tweets rack up at a rate of about 6000 every second. While I write this, there are over a billion separate websites, with over 3.89 billion pages (You can see the ‘size of the Internet’ change in real-time at http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/)
You’re wondering how this makes any difference to your business. The statistics above are interesting, but here’s the one that brings it home. Every second of every day, more than 2,000,000 emails are sent. How many are unread in YOUR inbox?
Data overload is happening to everyone. We’re inundated in emails, tweets, Facebook posts, pins, and a host of other calls for attention. Technology has not, as of yet, developed the solution for keeping up with it all, namely the 25th, 26th and 27th hour of the day. Since those extra hours aren’t here, yet, although I keep trying to invent them, how can one manage the time consumed by both ‘good’ emails and time wasters?
First off, use more than one email address. Yes, more makes for simplicity. Use a Yahoo, Gmail of other ‘freebee’ email service for all those companies who send newsletters, sale fliers, blogs, and the like. Using something completely divorced from your primary work email address (which should NOT be your primary personal email address) gets right at the heart of the problem. When you have spare time, go to the freebee email portal and dig in. DO NOT have that address automatically sent to your phone, Outlook, Thunderbird or whatever you view normal emails with. There needs to be a barrier between that type of email and your business and personal correspondence.
After you have that general email address set up take an afternoon, subscribe only to the ones you want (times do change and your sign ups from 2005 may not be relevant anymore) at that new address. As soon as you do, unsubscribe from those lists on your ‘real’ email address. Use this opportunity to clean house and make your days easier.
Now, back to my pithy comment above, if you are using the same address for work and personal emails, time to split those up too. It’s fine to have those two addresses hitting your phone and computer, but when you await an important message about your child, you don’t want it mixed in with work and when that contract comes in, you shouldn’t need to sort through PTA emails to find it.
Next, use the power of the computer and the software you paid for. Create folders for general topics you deal with, be it your kid’s soccer team, church group, purchase orders, legal docs, etc. There’s no need to go hog wild with fifty folders when ten will do, but make those ten folders reflect topics you can easily prioritize on a hectic day. If a deadline is nearing, go straight for that project folder instead of having to sift through dozens of messages irrelevant to getting the job done on time.
Lastly, set rules for the incoming emails, this may be a time when you need your tech staff to assist you. When the sender is a subcontractor, have Outlook dump that email immediately into the folder for them, or for the project they are working on. If the sender is your child’s school, into the folder for that child it goes. Vendor invoices or correspondence goes into the vendor folder, then maybe a sub-folder for just them. What you have to learn to do is look at the folders for the highlight or number denoting new messages, rather than the inbox. In this way, you immediately know the topics of many of your incoming emails and can prioritize with just a glance.
Start with very general folders and rules and refine them as you become comfortable with the new ‘normal’. If do it correctly, you can deal with 200-400 emails a day (as I get) and still have time for lunch. Now, if only you can get your staff to do the same thing …
I welcome your questions or comments at businesstech@software-to-go.com
Joe Balsarotti, president of Software To Go, is a 36-year veteran of the computer industry, reaching back to the days of the Apple II. He served three terms as chairman of the National Federation of Independent Business’ (NFIB) Missouri Leadership Council, was chairman of the Clayton, Missouri, Merchant Association for a dozen years, chaired Region VII of the Federal Small Business Regulatory Fairness Board, and currently serves on the Dealer Advisory Panel of the ASCII Group, an organization of over 1000 independent computer and technology solution providers in North America.