Taking Back Your Inbox - the E-mail Dilemma [Common Sense PR]

Jeremiah Owyang started a good discussion about the love-hate relationship so many of us have with e-mail.

It’s a crucial tool for work and our private lives. Yet, more often than not, we find ourselves held hostage by the always-overflowing Inbox. Some days, I feel just like Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer’s apprentice in Fantasia - drowning in the success of a time-saving tool.

Something needs to change. Jeremiah thinks the solution lies partly in processes and partly in the use of tools.

I’m still a prisoner to my Inbox, and it’s my own damn fault. I’ve managed to automatically move a bunch of alerts and notices to the appropriate folders. But now I never visit those folders. I used to find some really interesting tidbits in those e-mail notices. But I’m tempted to just cancel all the alerts and start from scratch.

The benefit of using Gmail as my main e-mail service is the quick and easy search function. Keeping my e-mails properly sorted and archived is great, but if my organizing system fails me, I can always just do a quick search.

Not great if you search for “news release,” or your name, but a key word search has often saved me from a long and possibly fruitless journey through my folders.

Jeremiah asked readers to pitch in with their e-mail overload solutions, and there are some good suggestions among the 64 responses.

Some tools:  GTD Inbox for Gmail, Google Mail Trends, Clear Context, Xobni and Away-Find.

Processes:  Inbox Zero, 3X/Day Inbox, E-mail Bankruptcy Solutions.

(Photo courtesy Jeremiah Owyang.  Illustration courtesy my Inbox and Photoshop.)

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