Insomnia-Fueled E-Mail Management Musings

I just saw Khoi Vinh’s post on managing e-mail and since I can’t sleep, I figured I’d tell you how I manage e-mail. I use OS X’s Mail.app for work mail and Thunderbird for my personal stuff (I like keeping them separate). I don’t get a ton of personal e-mail, but I get between one hundred and three hundred e-mails a day for work (during the week, 50-70 on weekends) between projects, internal listservs and CSS Working Group stuff. That number’s been as high as four hundred during the AIM Pages crunch last year, I was getting more than five hundred a day.\
I’ve managed that load for more than five years, and have found a couple things that keep me sane.

  1. I have a smart folder called Unread Messages that has only messages I haven’t read in it. Instead of peering at threads and a thousands-message long inbox, it contains only the stuff I haven’t read. I have another smart folder that has messages received in the last 36 hours. I almost never go into the Inbox view, because there’s just too much stuff there.
  2. Respond right away. If you can’t respond in a couple minutes, open the message in a new window and get to it after you’ve filtered the rest.
  3. Do your e-mail first thing. I spend the first half-hour of the day filtering e-mail and respond, and then get to work. I’ll check back every hour or so and filter again, depending on what I’m working on. If I’m coding and in the zone, then I might only check at the end of the day, but if I’m in meetings, it’s more often.\
    That’s pretty much it. My work day is an exercise in interruption management. Between e-mails and IMs from co-workers, I deal with hundreds of interruptions a day. It’s funny, but when I really have to get something done and don’t log in to AIM or open my e-mail, I miss the interruptions. I don’t know what to do with myself.\
    Sad, isn’t it?

I once only had $500…

I love the judge in this case: Housewife gets \$184 million in divorce.

Go me!

I just finished fixing the vacuum all by myself! Wheeeeee!

Rules for Career Development

I’ve been asked to talk to a group here at AOL about career development (no idea when, or really what the topic is). But, Jason and I were talking about it, and came up with this list of rules that I think are worth sharing, even if they’re not fully baked:

  1. Don’t be a dick: Translated – be constructive, helpful and positive
  2. Teach yourself something new on every project
  3. Be passionate about what you do: If you’re not, find something else to do.
  4. Get involved in the internal and external communities
  5. Repeat step one
  6. Know when to run: No one talks about it, but you have to know when to get out of a bad situation. I’ve been very lucky at AOL to know when it was time to move on to a new group or challenge. Thankfully, I’ve always found a soft place to land with new challenges.
  7. Expect change, roll with it, move on: Working in a company means things will change. When you’re not in charge, there will be lots of stuff that happens that you don’t agree with. You have to know when to fight, when to give up, and when to move on. The quicker you can do all three, the better.
  8. Update Have a support system: This one comes from Jen’s comment. It really helps to have someone in your corner – a spouse, parent, best friend or mentor who you can turn to. My wife is, of course, my most important, but I’ve had lots of mentors and good managers that have helped point me in the right direction.
  9. Update Be someone who gets things done: This one is from Joe in the comments, but it’s a good one. People don’t care about excuses or reasons why things don’t happen. Be the one folks can go to and get things accomplished.\
    Cool, I think the presentation’s all done! Thanks, Jason!

Things to Make You Giggle

Because so much in the world sucks and isn’t funny at all, here are some Tuesday morning links to make you crack a smile:

  • LOL Presidents – Be prepared to spend at least half an hour laughing. Good good stuff. See also: LOLPresident
  • Flight of the Conchords – You can watch the first episode of their new HBO series online fo’ free! They’re insanely funny, and I can’t wait for the show to start.
  • I Can Has Cheezeburger? – No explanation, just go check it out. Look out for the walrus/bucket series.
  • LOLGeeks – More of the same, only geeks!\
    Now, get to work! The weekend’s over, hippy!

Screw you, CNN.

Great news: US forces free 41 hostages held by al Queda. I don’t believe a word of it. This may very well be true, but I don’t trust anything the media reports about Iraq after the blatant lies reported about Jessica Lynch.

Just for the record

I will always need my mom. Even when I am 64 and a grandmother living off of social security and enjoying the early bird special at Luby’s, I will still need my mom. Even if there comes a time when she isn’t around, due to the cycle of life, I will still need my mom.\
Check it out: My mom and Me!

Paris Pics

Arc de Triomphe in Paris\
Most of them are up now over on Flickr.

Au Revoir, Paris!

It’s been a good week in Paris for XTech. I haven’t been able to do a lot of site seeing with Jen because of a chest cold and my foot, but the food’s been good, the company great and I’ve learned some interesting stuff and met some really cool folks. I spent most of the afternoon in the hotel bar with Molly, Simon and a bunch of other geeks laughing and drinking (them wine, me Fanta and a Coke). Then tonight, to cap all of this fun off, Jen and I had dinner with Daniel Glazman and his lovely wife at a fantastic French restaurant. The food was out of this world, and the company was wonderful. I love Daniel, and am always happy when we get to share a meal. We both love food and giggle over each course, how it taste, how they made it, where the ingredients are from… way too much fun.\
It’s up early tomorrow, breakfast, then off to the airport and home to see the boys and hear all about their adventures with Grandma. Au revoir, Paris!

Tom and Kevin’s XTech Presentation

It’s called Open AIM as It Relates to You. I’m about to run downstairs to catch Simon Willison’s presentation, and then we’re up. Then, it’s time to pack, then go out to dinner with Daniel, go to bed, wake up, and then come home!