Update those Email Addresses

 

When I retired from full-time employment. I also retired my company email. This was an email address which had been in place since sometime in the late 1990’s.  For discussion purposes I will call this account a mature email account.

What is a mature email account?  It is the digital footprint of me traipsing all over the internet for 20+ years. It encompasses the sites I visited to look for a new product, sites I went to for research purposes, you get it, the place we go on the web.  This has lead my mature email to have the junk box fill up day in and day out.  There are the offers for the newest electronic gadget, a discounted trip to some exotic island… just click here, or my offer to collect my million dollars from some king in a little-known third world country.   In the last few years, I have tried to be vigilant to remove the people that are sending legitimate junk email.  These entities who hook you up via cookies or a click usually have an unsubscribe link some where in the email, although it may be 6-point type hidden deep in some disclaimer, but it is there.

Since I have moved from my mature email account, I have set up two new email accounts.  One of them is Gmail and the other has to do with some consulting I am doing.   So old habits die hard. I still find myself checking email at least in the morning, around lunchtime and then late in the afternoon.

But here is the interesting thing about my new email accounts; I only get a handful of emails a day. I am talking like 10 to 12 emails – A DAY.   Do you have any idea how refreshing that is?  I sometimes feel like something has been taken away from me.  I remember as a young man, I some how associated getting junk U.S. Mail to status.  This included printed catalogues, flyers or post cards.   I think some of us have the same vibe with the junk emails. You get so many of them you must be important!

Here is my take-away.  Perhaps to improve productivity in the workplace companies should direct email administrators to periodically update email addresses with a change in protocol/names.  Consider going from first initial + last name to first name.last name or change an email domain name.  I am sure the IT folks could come up with something to change. For me, less email is less worries, less time spend messing with it.  For those of you, who must plow through email to make sure you did not miss something, this is a time suck.   And while we are changing emails, couldn’t we do away with business phones and voice mail?  Anyone that needs to talk to you has your cell phone number already.