I’ve come to accept very recently that it is our personal responsibility to be our own information gatekeepers. Everyone around me is constantly complaining how they’re overloaded. They can’t keep up with email. Their iphone is driving them mental. Blah blah blah. It’s time, I think, we realised that the greatest challenge our generation faces is controlling how we receive information. This much we know: we WILL continue to be flooded. Unless we install our own boundaries. No one else will do it for us.
The new wisdom is knowing this. The new status is being in control of it. The new power is having firm boundaries. Like, for instance, standing tall and proud and declaring you only check email twice a day. Or boldly deciding you work a four-day week. Or not taking your phone out with you when you have dinner with someone you wish to explore intimacy with. I’ve experimented with all this. And more.
To this end another nifty little tip for stemming the tide of group work emails onto one’s phone, from timesonline. It seems rather involved and bothersome. And, personally, it doesn’t work for me because I don’t get too many group emails any more (I’ve used other techniques to plug the flow, like unsubscribing from emails, and requesting that I’m left off certain group emails). But it could suit you:
If your work e-mail is anything like mine, many of the hundreds of messages you receive every day are actually addressed to groups or huge mailing lists, rather than you personally.
Sometimes it becomes difficult or even impossible to find the things you’re really looking for, particularly in older versions of Outlook.
In desperation the other week, I set up a new account on Gmail. I then went back to my work Outlook and set up a rule to automatically forward mail addressed to me personally to Gmail.
So far, so good. Gmail acts like a filter, and it’s much easier to search and access on a mobile device than going through all the Microsoft Exchange setup malarkey.
Now comes the bit I love. Head back to the Gmail account and click on Settings. Add your work signature under general if you wish. Then mosey over to the Accounts and Import tag.
Here, there’s an option for everything you send from Gmail to appear as if it comes from your work e-mail address. You enter the address you want it to look like, Google then sends a confirmation e-mail to that address. You confirm, and bingo!
The upshot is that my personal mobile phone now picks up work-related e-mail sent to me personally, and I can reply on the move while appearing to be at my Times e-mail address. Setup is easier than MS Exchange, search is faster, and all the e-mails are intended for me personally.
