Much has been written about the psychology of managing an email Inbox.

It would seem that we fall into two opposing camps:

1. A bulging Inbox is a badge of honour, or
2. An empty Inbox is a well-managed resource.

And clearly, there are various grey areas in between these extremes.

Cast your mind back, if you are old enough, to pre-email days, when the postal system, fax machines and phone messages captured and directed our attention to what needed to be done. Our Inbox in bygone times a pile of paper, and In Tray; but the same judgements would have applied.

Junk Mail (the printed variety) has been replaced with Junk Mail the email variety, and because email facilitates low-cost delivery, there is much more Junk Email to contend with than Junk Mail of the posted kind.

Attempts to manage email have resulted in the use of hyper-active spam blockers and other formidable software-based solutions. Inevitably, they tend to be non-discriminatory and much useful communication is blocked in this way.

Perhaps the day is fast approaching when we will have to train helpers to mange this unending task. Having valuable sales leads or customer requests jostling for your attention in the jungle of unremitting, uncalled for “spam” is the next great communications challenge we will all face.

Whichever of the above extremes we adopt, we do need to sort the useful from the not so useful entries in our Inboxes. Who knows what gems we are missing…?

Source: New feed