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October 11, 2006
What Does Your Inbox Say About You?
So there’s a Center for Internet Behavior in Connecticut. And guess what? It’s got something to say about what your inbox might say about you.
"If you keep your inbox full rather than empty, it may mean you keep your life cluttered in other ways," says psychologist and founder Dave Greenfield, as quoted in CareerJournal. "Do you cling to the past? Do you have a lot of unfinished business in your life?"
On the other hand, do you obsessively clean your inbox, immediately moving emails to their appropriate folders and killing spam? “You may be so quick to move on that you miss opportunities and ignore nuances,” suggests the article. “Or your compulsion for order may be sapping your energy from other endeavors.” Where do you lie on this seeming spectrum of inbox behavior?
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Posted by Maya on October 11, 2006 at 10:45 AM in The Daily Grind | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
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Comments
Define e-mail client rules or filters to file incoming messages (by sender) once they're read and outgoing messages (by addressee). Delete junk daily. Then you have the best of both worlds: a clean in-box so you don't overlook anything and all messages filed effortlessly.
Posted by: Cynthia | Oct 24, 2006 6:44:07 PM
I usually go through my e-mailboxes at least once a day to keep them reasonably uncluttered. (It's certainly easier to keep my inboxes uncluttered than it is my house.) I even have a separate YAHOO! mailbox just for my archived e-mails. Then, when I go through my e-mails, I just delete the junk and the rest of what I don't want, and the majority of what I want to keep goes into that mailbox.
Posted by: Linda | Oct 25, 2006 9:02:13 AM
I really like e mail better than phone communication. I type faster than I talk and I can save the important ones by saving to my hard drive and then making a hard copy as well. People forget what they hear or what they say but if it is in writing you can't forget unless you choose to.
Posted by: amy heflin | Oct 25, 2006 12:32:36 PM
It has been a while since i have cleaned my In Box ans also most of the time i don't have the time. I have 4 children in my house! the oldest is 6,5,3(end of September) and 2( in 2 weeks!) My 2 year old is equal to 5! The other 3 belong to my sister! but, no matter what I do they find me!!!
Posted by: Taji | Aug 20, 2007 1:16:20 AM
Who has time to read all those emails?
My boss stood over my shoulders today and he could see that I had 4,000+ emails in my inbox at work. Good thing he couldn't see the 4,000+, many the same as work, that I have in my inbox at home. Usually when I get that many, I group them and delete by sender or date, figuring if I haven't read them I never will. I do keep personal messages and some really good jokes from my friends in Florida. I have long since deleted all the jokes from friends in Arizona and Georgia, they just aren't that funny. I never get personal emails from other states or countries. It would be interesting to map states and countries with the best and worst email jokes one day. I'll need to get a truly powerful GIS for that. Good night all.
Posted by: Lo | Oct 18, 2007 1:01:24 AM
I do clean up my inbox every day and keep only unanswered and unprocessed mails inside. For all long term tasks i create an entry in my task list (GTD user here) and track them there. Junk mails are not a problem until you use well configured freemail providers (Gmail is my favourite) or the computer department of your company did their homework.
Posted by: Michael | Jan 14, 2008 10:26:45 AM
I clean my inbox everyday and I delete junk mail first. Everything else gets read and put in files. I just don't like a lot of clutter laying around. I have three emails for different things in my life such as; work, personal and for my kid's school. I hate getting junk mail it drives me crazy! Well, have a great day.
Posted by: Shay | Apr 17, 2008 7:41:36 PM
