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How many e-mail clients do you need?

March 23, 2011

Jodie Tonita is a lovely person. She is passionate, funny, kind to children and small animals, and an amazing hula-hooper. Unfortunately she was sent by our alien overlords to ensure I never do my actual work. As evidence, check out this message Jodie left on my Facebook wall: I realize that it is theoretically possible [...]

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Using your e-mail signature to fight inbox overload

February 28, 2011

It’s day 5 of my vendetta on mandatory e-mail replies and I’m feeling the pain. On the one hand, I’m as committed as ever to changing the attitude that every e-mail needs a response — an attitude that is totally out-of-step with every other channel of online communications, and a major contributor to personal stress. [...]

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Two tweaks for your e-mail vendetta auto-responder

February 25, 2011

Yesterday I set up a vacation responder as part of my e-mail vendetta. If you’re thinking of doing the same, you might note a couple of tweaks: I forward multiple e-mail addresses to a single Gmail account. But Gmail’s vacation responder doesn’t do a good job of sending auto-responses to emails that come in via [...]

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Don’t try this at home: Implementing the e-mail vendetta

February 24, 2011

Today I declared war on e-mail. Well, not all e-mail: just the tyrannical assumption that we should all reply to every single message we reply. In a blog post for the Harvard Business Review, I called for a vendetta on the mandatory universal reply. That means challenging the expectation that every answerable e-mail will get [...]

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AFTER e-mail: 5 steps to moving task management out of your inbox

January 6, 2011

If  watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the 8th time was the highlight of your holiday season, you obviously missed my awe-inspiring but tragically neglected 10-part series on 7 days to Inbox Zero. The day after I posted my initial promise to blog my way to empty, I woke up with the horrible realization that I [...]

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How to create Gmail labels that help empty your e-mail inbox

December 30, 2010

Before you get get rolling with your new filters, you’ll need to set up some labels. I described my collection of alternate mail processing boxes (aka quasi-inboxes) in my first blog post about inbox zero, and offer more suggestions about label setup in my blog post on how to empty your inbox with Gmail filters, [...]

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21 Gmail filters that will empty your e-mail inbox

December 29, 2010

Anyone can empty their inbox in 7 days, if you give them enough coffee and don’t care about preserving their will to live. But if you want that shiny new inbox to stay empty, you need a set of filters (rules) that will help keep unnecessary e-mail from hitting your inbox in the first place. [...]

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Empty your inbox with Gmail filters

December 28, 2010

The heart of my system for getting to inbox zero and keeping my inbox on empty is Gmail filters: rules that do a lot of the work of processing my e-mail so that I can focus my attention on what matters most. If you’ve been following my 7 days to inbox zero, you’ve already set [...]

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Reduce the volume of your incoming e-mail with an e-mail “vacation”

December 26, 2010

It’s hard to empty your inbox if you’ve got a steady steam of inbound e-mail. The good news is that the week between Christmas and New Year’s is the perfect time to switch off the incoming flood. Yes, I’m talking about a vacation auto-responder — but not one that’s going to leave you with a [...]

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5 essential ingredients for effective e-mail management

December 25, 2010

Welcome to day 1 of my 7 Days to Inbox Zero game plan. Before you get started, there are a few things you may want to set up: Gmail: My method for getting your inbox to zero relies heavily on Gmail’s exceptionally powerful filters. So if you aren’t currently using Gmail, I recommend making the [...]

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How to stop waiting by the inbox

June 28, 2010
Thumbnail image for How to stop waiting by the inbox

I recently sent one of those e-mails that leaves you feeling like a shmuck. Not because of anything I wrote, but because I knew I would be obsessively checking my inbox every five minutes until I got a response. There are all kinds of reasons you might find yourself checking your e-mail for an eagerly [...]

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