How I use email

by Peter Rojas


About three or four years ago I resolved to get my inbox under control -- like most people I was having a tough time keeping up with everything -- and after a few weeks I was able to get there. Here's what I do to stay on top of my inbox (and apologies if these are just completely obvious things to do): 1. Use Gmail

I know this isn't an option for everyone and that there are plenty of people who don't like Gmail, but switching from a POP3 client (I used to Thunderbird) to a cloud-based system was a big help for me. Seriously, before I used Gmail everything was mess. I couldn't keep things in sync and I had a huge backlog of unanswered messages. Gmail's system of threading and starring messages took a little while to get used to, but now I find it indispensable. Plus I can access my email on multiple devices without having to worry about keeping everything in sync. It's something we take for granted now, but it's hard to remember just how difficult this was for most people.

2. Don't leave any messages unread

When you go through your inbox, delete everything that isn't important right away. Don't let anything sit unread, even if you already know whether you're going to delete it or respond to it. Seriously, don't do it.

3. Then either reply, archive, or star

Once you've deleted everything that's not important, you need to either: reply to anything that needs an immediate response (or that can be responded to quickly), archive anything that doesn't need a response but that you do want to file away somewhere, and star anything that you can deal with later.

4. If you can, take your time getting back to people

Email begets email, so unless you really need to get back to someone right away, feel free to just star their message and get back to them later. Otherwise they're just going to reply to your response and then you're right back where you started. That star is your reminder to yourself to deal with it later, so unless it's urgent, don't feel bad about getting to it when you can. It's OK to have up to a couple dozen emails in your starred folder.

5. Use your phone to keep an eye on your email -- but don't obsess over writing back from your phone

I've been using my phone for email ever since I bought my first Treo in 2003, but I try not to write many emails from my phone. Rather then tap out messages on my phone, I use it mainly to process emails that come in whenever I'm out and about. Unless there's something that requires an immediate answer, I'll star anything that needs a reply and then hit them when I'm back at a computer and can more efficiently crank them out. Sure, there are times I'll be in a cab with nothing to do and so I'll hit a few messages, but unless you have some downtime you're probably better off saving all those responses for when you're at a PC and can write them more quickly.

6. Try to minimize how much noise hits your inbox

This is easier said than done, right? I don't use Priority Inbox -- I don't trust an algorithm to make filter properly -- so instead I try and eliminate emails that I know aren't going to be important from hitting my inbox in the first place. Most people underestimate how much noise makes it into their inbox each day. Here's my rule: If you find yourself deleting a recurring newsletter or notification or whatever from someone without reading it more than a two or three times in a row, either unsubscribe or create a filter that routes those emails out of your inbox and into the trash. It seems easy to just manually delete all those emails as they come in, but you'll be less overwhelmed by your email if you just suck it up and keep them out of your inbox altogether.

7. Create filters

Part of minimizing that noise is creating filters for messages you want, but that aren't super important. I don't mind getting Fab.com and LivingSocial-type emails, but I don't want them inundating my inbox, so I have a folder just for those that I filter all of those into. Same thing with notifications from any social network I've joined or email list I'm on that I don't want to leave but also don't want to be distracted by. Again, it's easy to just delete stuff as it comes in, but we underestimate the cognitive burden that accumulates from doing that. Taking twenty seconds to create a filter is a pain, but they're a small investment in lessening your inbox overload.

Anyway, I know everyone's situation is different, so I'm not going to pretend I've developed some universally perfect system, but I thought others might find it useful to hear what I did. It's definitely worked for me.


What I want in an online music service

by Peter Rojas


What I really want in an online music service is something that combines the streaming catalog of an RDIO, Spotify, or Rhapsody with the ability to upload whatever isn't in their catalog to a locker. I'd settle for a service that scanned my collection and then uploaded whatever wasn't already available in Spotify to Google Music or Amazon Cloud Player. Somehow I don't expect either to happen, though perhaps some enterprising developer will hack together the latter.


The books I read this year

by Peter Rojas


One of my goals for 2011 was to read more, and while I fell short of my goal of reading a book every two weeks, I did manage to read more than did in 2010. Here's what I read this year:

  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman
  • At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
  • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  • Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
  • Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
  • The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking
  • The Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen
  • The Lost Worlds of 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke
  • The New Capitalist Manifesto by Umair Haque
  • The Next Decade by George Friedman
  • Zero History by William Gibson

I also read all five A Song of Fire and Ice books by George R. R. Martin (I read through the first four in about a month so I could read the new one when it was released):

  • Game of Thrones 
  • A Clash of Kings 
  • A Storm of Swords
  • A Feast for Crows 
  • A Dance with Dragons 
I'm also in the middle of three books:

  • 1491 by Charles Mann
  • The Information by James Gleick
  • A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Neglected

by Peter Rojas


I've obviously been neglecting my blog here. There are a variety of reasons why -- I've been posting my tech-related writing to gdgt and more general stuff to Google+ and Twitter -- but I'm going to try writing here more again.