Today, I'm embarking on an experiment. Y'see, like many people I've got a problem with email: I get hundreds of mails every week to my work address. Lots of spam, of course, of the kind you'd all recognise. But then there's the semi-spam from public relations companies - tons of it - and all the various mailing lists I've signed up to in the past and, lost in there somewhere, all the stuff that needs acted on now: tips, ideas, copy, images, invoices... you name it.
This morning, I had a sediment of some 6000 emails which had built up over recent months. I decided to either file away or delete everything, and leave my inbox empty. Surprisingly, this didn't take too long: I'm now looking at a dozen emails that will be dealt with before I leave tonight.
I might end up writing about this sometime for the paper, but not straight away. I've yet to discover if all the stuff I deleted holds anything important at all, or if - in fact - it was just there because of the hoarding instinct I think most journalists have. In the meantime, do any of you have any email management tips you'd like to share? Stick them in the comment box below... I'd rather you didn't email them :-)
