A couple of minor changes in my email routines and technology have led to a pretty radical transformation in my information consumption habits.
Our agency went to a hosted email Exchange solution, meaning that we can use Outlook to access email from the cloud – we no longer have to be tethered to the LAN to do this.
As with any technology change there are unintended consequences. I have run into some things that are a little irritating, like the need to set up my email signature again. Another side effect that I thought would be irritating, but has actually led to some positive changes, is the fact that all those little nifty rules I had set up to shunt various types of emails into different folders no longer work.
The result is that all email comes in as an uninterrupted stream. At first I thought: Damn! I need to go through the process again of figuring out what to send where, and defining rules for this. That was followed quickly by the thought: Crap! My IT guy is right. I do get a ton of email, and it is a difficult to manage mess.
But a funny thing happened – what at first seemed to be be intense and overwhelming turned into a cure for procrastination and a boon in information discovery.
All the stuff that I used to miss is now right there – search alerts, newsletters, as well as the usual email from friends, clients and colleagues, and yes, spam and pitches for this blog too.
I have developed a new routine where I quickly cycle through email to separate the wheat from the chaff. I flag important emails – e.g. Google search alerts regarding content that might be good blogging or tweeting fodder – by emailing them back to myself for future reference (I know this is a little low tech and scary, but hey it works).
I can hunt these puppies down by sorting by name. I can use my Blackberry email client when I am out and on the run to cycle through email and flag topics in a similar manner – it almost feels like a video game, scan, zoom, pop, forward!
I know that if I don't try to keep up by making email scanning a habit that I tackle several times a day I will miss stuff and probably never see it again. As a result, I have found topics that have turned into nice blog posts and tweets. And, at least so far – I have not missed anything important from clients, family, friends and coworkers.
To make this system perfect I just need to prune all the junk a bit more. Folders and email organization are for pikers!
