Timely Tips June 2008: An Awesome E-mail/E-Commerce Tip

Thanks to John at the Affordable Meetings Conference for the "Mailinator" Tip!

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So, I had just gotten done doing my "Taming E-mail" session at the Affordable Meetings West conference in Long Beach (to note, I'll also be leading a "Taming E-mail" session at the National Affordable Meetings Conference in DC in September), when John, one of the program attendees, comes up and says, "Hey Randy -- great session on getting that e-mail under control. Have you used "mailinator" yet? It's awesome!"

Now, of course, that question made my ears perk up. "Mailinator -- no. I haven't heard of that before. What's that?"

"Oh, it's great. It is a web site that allows you to create bogus e-mail names so you can get access to stuff on the web without having to give out your real e-mail addresses. You just create a bogus e-mail address like randy@mailinator.com, and mailinator will accept any messages sent to that address for you (http://www.mailinator.com also provides several other usable e-mail domain names too, like "@mailin8r.com"). It is a live public e-mail address that actually works. You can monitor mailinator.com to watch for the reply e-mails you need info from, and then you can forget about it. They'll never get your real e-mail, and you can get access to the free information and content you want from the web, without having to accept all of the follow-up crazy junk e-mail and spam that many of these online content providers are famous for."

I thought, "Wow -- that's awesome!" I don't know how many times I've seen a "free report" or "special podcast" out on the web that I would've liked to have gained access to, but I didn't because I simply didn't want the provider to get my e-mail address. Now, through mailinator, I can gain access to that information, yet keep my electronic privacy.

Now, of course, you don't want to use mailinator for financial transactions or for e-mail activities where you are sharing valid personal information, passwords, etc. The e-mails received by mailinator are posted publicly, so you want to make sure any information shared/received is generic. But it sure does give you a great option for getting that "Top 5 Things to Make You Amazing at (Insert Hobby/Passion Here)" report on the web. Check out http://www.mailinator.com today, and make it a part of your e-commerce, web/info routine.

TELESEMINAR RECORDING: 90-Minute Taming E-mail Teleseminar with special host Tony Rubleski
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I know that many of you sent me notes wishing you could have made the recent Taming E-mail teleseminar I conducted with help from special guest host and popular author/speaker Tony Rubleski (http://www.mindcapturegroup.com), but that you couldn't make the call due to other conflicts and commitments. Well, worry not! We captured an outstanding recording of this session, and I've decided to make this recording my "audio version" of Taming the E-mail Beast.

In this 90-minute session (plus Q&A at the end), we covered most of the better strategies from my new e-book on Taming the E-mail Beast (learn more on the e-book at http://www.emailsanityexpert.com). I will be packaging this recording on a 2-CD set, and will include a set of coordinated handouts with this recording. I will also be offering several valuable bonuses for all program purchasers, including a copy of my 20-chapter Taming the E-mail Beast: 45 Key Strategies for Managing Your E-mail Overload (and Regaining Your E-mail Sanity) e-book, as well as access to a slew of additional free bonuses, including a set of coordinated Taming E-mail video tutorials, several free e-books and special reports (including a free e-book copy of Tony's first Mind Capture book), access to an online program audio replay (as well as several other podcasts), and more, all for a very affordable purchase price of $39. (We're using this as a rollout price, and expect to raise prices on this package soon.)

So, if you've been waiting for a great time to tame that e-mail beast, that time is now. Here is the link to make your order: http://www.randalldean.com/offers.html.

Also note that you can order just the e-book, with access to many of the same special bonuses, on this same page.

SPECIAL NOTE: Keep an eye out for info on Tony's big book launch at the end of July. I'll definitely be involved in making this effort a big success -- look for more info in the upcoming July Timely Tips.

Some New Taming E-mail Testimonials
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As you've read above, I've been leading several of my Taming E-mail conference sessions and in-depth employee sessions at several venues in recent months. We've received some great follow-up comments that I wanted to share:

First, from Nicole Proctor, Special Gifts Officer at Michigan State University:

"I attended both of your recent seminars at MSU HRD. I just wanted to let you know that my inbox went from 800-1000 to 0! I talked to you after your presentation about file names. Well I applied the 3 minute rule to creating file names, or more like the 3 second rule. And it worked! I gave myself 3 seconds to think of a name and if I thought of something better as I was filing I just changed it and reconfigured the placement of my files. It worked out wonderfully! I now have a filing system for my work e-mail and am starting to do the same for my personal e-mail.

I haven't begun the process of de-cluttering my office yet but will start on that later today. Thank you for a wonderful course!"

Next, from Aaron Titus, Technical Program Manager for the Constructions Specifications Institute:


"Randy,

I attended one of your webinars last month (hosted by CSI), and wanted to thank you for a couple of your ideas. Most notably, helping me to take control of my inbox. During the webinar, my inbox had more than 2,800 messages in it. As you pointed out, I can do one of three things with each message: 1. Delete it as spam or junk. 2. Turn it into an action item by dragging it to my tasks bar or doing it immediately (3-minute rule), or 3. Archive it in a folder for future reference.

I am happy to report that my inbox currently has one e-mail in it."

Finally, from Brenda Jencks at U. Michigan Flint:

"Randy -- I attended your workshop yesterday morning and have to say
that it is the most worthwhile workshop I have ever attended. All of
the material is practical, easily applied and something I wish I had
learned years ago. I will continue to implement ideas into my work
space and look forward to the results!"

It sure is great seeing these Taming E-mail and Time Management strategies being adopted by so many people in so many different organizations. I hope you too have been benefiting from these tips and strategies shared in each month's Timely Tips, and in my seminars, training programs, and information products. If so, please send me a note with your success stories too!

Until Next Time ...
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Enjoy the upcoming Independence Day holiday (wave a sparkler for me!), and then look for me at the upcoming Michigan Society of Association Executives ORG-PRO conference and also the Annual Indiana Society of Association Executives conference in July. I will also be speaking at big conferences in DC (Affordable Meetings) and Dearborn, Michigan (ICLE/Michigan State Bar) in September, and Chicago (Health Industry Distributors Assocation -- HIDA) and northern Michigan (Michigan Chamber of Commerce Executives) in October, as well as returning to many of my favorite corporate, association, university and community college clients this fall too. So, keep an eye out for me.

Until next time,

Stay Timely!

Timely Tips May 2008: The Shift & CTRL Keys as E-mail "Organizers"

Use the Shift and CTRL keys to Select and File Related Groups of E-mail Messages
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This is another tip I share in my new e-book, Taming the E-mail Beast: 45 Key Strategies for Better Managing Your E-mail Overload. It really helps when trying to clean up a messy e-mail account, by allowing you to quickly select and move related messages to appropriate folders (or delete them!)

Here's how it works in MS Outlook:

Most people know how to sort messages in the Outlook e-mail tool by clicking on the "To/From", "Subject", "Date Received/Sent", or "Size" tabs at the top of the general e-mail screen. Simply click on any one of these headers, and all of your e-mails in that folder will suddenly sort top to bottom for that specific category, just like a sort works in MS Excel (for all of you spreadsheet experts out there). Click on the same header again, and now the sort will be from bottom to top.

What happens when you do this is that you will get "like" messages all grouped together. For instance, if you had an e-mail from me, Randy Dean, selected, and then you clicked on the "From" header or tab, you will likely see all of my e-mails in a group right next to each other. Above them, you'll have all of your e-mails from Rance Gibson, and below you'll have all of the e-mails from Rascal Stephens (alpha sort above and below). Let's now suppose that all of those e-mails from yours truly could now be put into a single file folder in your e-mail account, as all of the e-mails you receive from me are related to a single project we are working on together. The slow way to move those e-mails is obviously moving them one at a time from your inbox folder to the appropriate subfolder for the project.

A better way is to use the Shift key. Select the very top message from "Randy Dean" using a single left click, then hold down the Shift key, then scroll to the bottom "Randy Dean" message and select (again with a single left click). You'll see that your Outlook (and I believe GroupWise and LotusNotes works the same way too -- Timely Tips readers, please confirm!) has now highlighted ALL of the Randy Dean messages as a single group. Now, you can move your mouse up over the selected group of messages, click and hold your left mouse button, and then you can drag and drop the entire group of messages "en masse" into the appropriate project folder. Test it out -- it is a pretty cool way to move lots of related e-mail messages in very little time!

Now, you can also use the CTRL key to do a similar action, but with the CTRL key, you can actually select messages that are "discontiguous". Do the same sort, get all of the "Randy" messages together, but this time, you need to split these messages between two e-mail project folders. Easy! Select the top message with a single left click just as before, but now hold down the CTRL key. Doing this, you can now click on each individual message that you want to move, and create a discontiguous group of messages to be filed "en masse" into the appropriate project folder. (By the way, these same basic Shift and CTRL selection capabilities work in many Microsoft and other business software programs, like Excel, Word, etc. -- test them out sometime.)

Using these two excellent strategies, you can select and move lots of related e-mails very quickly and efficiently. Give it a try!

A Few Great Comments/Qualifiers on Last Month's Timely Tips
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Dr. Tunga Kiyak of the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University (and avid Timely Tips reader) had a few great follow up comments on my suggestion for using your "out of office" autoreply per last month's tip. These are some great reminders for appropriately setting up an autoreply message, and I wanted to share them with all of you:

"1) Do not set an auto-response to every email if you are subscribed to mailing lists. Otherwise, every person that sends a message to the mailing list receives one of these autoreplies back. And if 50 people on the list are doing this, you get 50 useless auto-response emails back from the mailing list for each mail you send out. Of course, my recommendation would be that all mailing lists be subscribed to via an alternate email anyways, not the email address that you use for your actual personal communications. (Hey Tunga -- that last little bit sounds a whole lot like one of my earlier tips about having multiple accounts. -RD)

2) Also, do not set an Auto Response function unless your email program also has a "smart memory" function for these auto-responses, so that your e-mail account does not send multiple auto-responses back to the same individual for every email they send. There are cases where you might send emails back and forth with the same person multiple times throughout the day clarifying issues, or tying up loose ends on a project on a deadline. It will be extremely frustrating if the person gets an auto-response message every time he or she sends you a message during the day. (Remember in the old days [like five years ago] when we were told not to use autoreplies as they could create "endless loops" with other people's autoreplies that could crash the server? -RD)

3) Do not forget to keep your auto-response message up-to-date. There is nothing worse then having an auto-response message saying that you'll be back on June 1st, when it's already June 10th... (Hey, and do the same thing with your voice mail message too! That's a big pet peeve of mine. -RD) ;-)

These are great additional autoreply tips. Thanks again for sharing them Tunga with the rest of the Timely Tips readers. (And please excuse my extraneous italicized commentary.)

Until Next Time ...
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Remember next week's teleseminar if you haven't registered yet, and look for me in coming weeks at MSU's HRD Group, U. Michigan Flint, on a Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) webinar, at the HSMAI Affordable Meetings West conference in Long Beach, CA, and at the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) Annual Conference in Tampa, FL, as well as grilling burgers and dogs somewhere here in Michigan on Memorial Day. Drop me a note if I'll be nearby.

Until next time,

Stay Timely!