From the course: Time Management Tips

How to reduce spam

From the course: Time Management Tips

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How to reduce spam

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- One common obstacle to productivity is an abundance of spam, or junk e-mail. If left unchecked, these unimportant and distracting e-mails can cause a lot of attention switches in your day, they can pull your focus away from what is most valuable. The good news is, there are several ways to combat spam. First, let's talk about what not to do. Occasionally, I'll meet someone who says, "My e-mail address got out and I'm getting too much spam. "I need to change my e-mail address." I believe this solution is not only overkill, but is not really a solution at all. Your e-mail address is bound to get out at some point, you might add it to a spammers web form accidentally or someone might carbon copy your e-mail address in a mass e-mail. Sooner or later, somebody who shouldn't have your e-mail address is going to get it. I checked my private e-mail address for this course, and just in the last week or so, I've received over 200 new spam messages. However, the good news is, none of these messages are a distraction to me. Why? First, I'm using a good spam filter. Most e-mail programs, such as Outlook or Gmail, come with a built-in spam filter and, usually, it's pretty smart at figuring out what is and is not spam. Most of the time. This is why you also need to train your filter. Most filters have a default algorithm that they use, however, you can train that algorithm by marking messages, either as spam or as not spam. When you see a spam message in your inbox that should have been filtered, don't just delete it. Using your e-mail program, select it and indicate that this is a spam message. This helps your filtering program get smarter. On the other side, occasionally go through your junk e-mail to make sure it's not accidentally catching things that it shouldn't catch. When you come across these things, most e-mail programs have a place where you can indicate this is not spam. In the beginning, this may feel like a hassle, but over time your program is going to get smarter and smarter. Pay attention to news letters that you subscribe to that once provided value for you, but not longer do. These, technically, aren't spam, but it's a good idea to unsubscribe from them, to reduce that amount of clutter in your inbox. By the way, the worst thing that you can do with spam is respond to it. Don't write back to someone telling them to remove you from your e-mail list. If the person is spamming illegally, all that does is communicate that they have a working e-mail address and that they should keep sending you more spam. Also, when sending out a message to a group of people, avoid using carbon copy, unless the people all know each other personally and work in the same organization. Instead, use blind carbon copy, which allows you to e-mail a group of people, but keeps the addresses hidden. This helps reduce the chance that someones e-mail ends up in the wrong hands. Spam is inevitable, being distracted by spam can be prevented.

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