Okay, I think I now have a solution for me which keeps me informed by the people who need to inform me, while cutting out all the noise from emails.
The goal is to give me more time to work on my internet business by cutting everyones biggest time consumer – email – down to next to nothing.
I have a Skype account that very few people have access to. My closest friends online, who are just as busy as me and don’t do idle chatter, my developers, and my students. I might hold one conversation a week average through that medium.
I have my support desk via TicketDesk Pro which has given me back 90 minutes a day of my life by cutting support time down from 2 hours to 30 minutes. Most of the regular questions have the answers inside the Standard Responses (SRs).
I now have a private forum by which I can communicate with my developers, and where everything is recorded for all projects. No more hunting through emails.
So that I don’t have to keep checking it every 30 minutes or so, I’ve created a unique email address where all notifications of new posts or responses from the private boards are sent to.
I’ve set up PopTray with just that one email account. I’ve set it so that a double click on the PopTray system tray icon opens the private forum in my browser, and a middle click opens up the PopTray mail window where I can delete the new notification message.
And that 3-way punch seems to be working really well.
#1 – A Skype account that very few people have access to.
#2 – TicketDesk Pro to handle customer issues.
#3 – A private forum with email notifications picked up by PopTray.
I’m not sure if this exact set up would work for you, but it means that for me I can now largely ignore my email as the people that really need to get hold of me can. I’ll leave this in place for another couple of weeks and then I may at last be down to checking my email once a week.
Maybe a variation of this would work for you and you can get a whole chunk of your life back.
-Frank Haywood
Another good find, Frank, and I’m downloading PopTray as we speak.
I rather like the look of the spoken alerts plug-in that’s available!
I’m coming to the same conclusions as you about email. I check it far too often and probably 95% of it makes no real difference to me, or to my customers.
Still not completely convinced about the once a week thing, but you seem to be getting there, so who knows?
Frank, you may be the only person I know who emails their list about a new blog update that informs the list how unimportant email is.
😉
ha ha ha
Amin: I’m convinced that once a week is the way to go. I might settle for twice a week, but if I can move all urgent communication to other non-intrusive media, then once a week it is.
John: In an ideal world (dum-de-dum), all my readers would use RSS to be notified of new blog posts.
However I remember reading somewhere that many people don’t even know what RSS means, and that it only accounts for something like 2-5% of a readership.
I’ve tried a few RSS readers, and quite frankly they all sucked big time. Either the layout, or the notification method or both meant that it wasn’t a pleasant experience. And of course many sites use extracts rather than the complete feed.
Anyway what I’m trying to say is, unless you’re one of the technorati who jump on every new thing as it appears, RSS isn’t yet viable.
The most effective way to get to people is still by email. And unless someone comes up with a truly great RSS reader, that’s the way it will stay.
And… I’m on a LOT of mailing lists myself. 😉
-Frank.
Great post. I know I spend way to much time reading emails but it is so additive. You are made to feel like you will be left out if you don’t respond right away. Thanks for the comments. I love reading your posts.
Bill
Frank, thanks for the opportunity to win one of 10 smartDD lite packages.
I suggest that in order for newbees to learn and appreciate the product, especially the lite version, the cost should not exceed $18 Even at that, a struggling newbee may not be able to “get in the game”.
Also, hopefully trainings and videos could come in handy!