Philosophy and Overview: January 2006 Archives

Before I dive in to documenting some of the techniques I use to manage it all, I thought a snapshot of a year's worth of email might be interesting.

Last year (2005) my wife and I received 4.5 gigabytes of email in almost half a million email messages.

Yes, that would be a lot of email.

How it breaks down is kind of interesting, as well.

Wait! Don't curse me out! You can have an empty inbox too.

That's what Taming Email is all about - getting your email under control

"Doing" Email

Many years ago while working at Microsoft, my manager commented to me that he spent too much time "doing email". Even then, circa 1992, before spam and viruses and before email marketing, email had become an important part of daily business. It was easy to feel overwhelmed by the flood of messages, all seeming to demand some kind of response.

But wait. Just what does it mean to "do email"?

In my opinion it means that we're not looking at email properly. It means that a shift in attitude and approach is required.

Email isn't something you "do" - it's a tool you use.

Taming Email is about honing your skills using that tool. Just like a carpenter builds better homes as he becomes more proficient using the tools of his trade, we can all become better at whatever it we do by learning to more effectively and efficiently use the tool that is email.

And what a powerful tool it is.

Let's look a little more closely at the difference between "doing email" and using email as a tool