Email Woes

Email can seem like a tyrant. If you don't read it the messages pile up until it will take you hours to catch up and you might miss an important message. Even when you read it regularly it can take over. 

I decided to go one whole week without reading my email.... and without sending a message or newsletter. Anyway today I am starting to read again and I have 602 messages in my personal account and 32 in my business email account. It is not like I shop online or subscribe to lots of lists. So what is in my email?

• Facebook
• Meet Up
• Pinterest
• Professional Organization
• Austin Business Journal
• Children's Defense Fund
• Environment Texas
• Change.org
• Long Center for the Performing Arts
• Advertisements - New Egg
• A few personal messages from friends
• Messages from my doctor

email lists in Facebook

Here is what I did with my 602 messages.

1. First I scanned the content to see what I was receiving.
2. Then I did an email search for the FROM line of messages that I no longer wanted to receive. Sometimes it came up with exactly what I wanted.  After found the messages that I didn't want used the checkbox at the top to choose all of the messages to trash and then clicked the trash can and they were thrown away. You can do this without marking them unread. Just delete them. It is so satisfying!
3. Finally, I emptied the trash in my email. 

I know that everyone has different email programs that look a bit different and use different words, but all of them can do something similar. It may just take some searching to find out how it is done in your program. I use Gmail.

LEARNING ABOUT UNSUBSCRIBE
What I learned is that some organizations have MANY LISTS. Facebook is a good example. I learned that if I just searched for FACEBOOK I got all kinds of email in my list, but when I searched for Facebook birthday I only got back results when FACEBOOK was notifying me of someone's birthday. When I went to the message I unsubscribed from the FACEBOOK Birthday list, but I still have email from Facebook.  I guess as I go I will find the different lists and unsubscribe from them. I finally found all of their lists and unsubscribed from them. See the list above. I found it in the Settings on Facebook under Notifications.

Another interesting thing is that I get email regularly from TED talks. The FROM line says "This Week on TED". I tried searching using TED, but that returned email about a friend named Ted and other things. So, I put the whole phrase in - this week on TED - and I still got all sorts of results. Then I added quotation marks - "this week on TED" and up came a whole list of ONLY "This Week on TED" email. I was able to mark all of them and delete them easily.

I now plan to do this every 6 months to a year. I am not sure how I get added to all of these lists. Most of them are things I am interested in.  Maybe I signed a petition or put my email on a list for something else. Maybe they got bought my email from someone. For a few of them I know I have purchased something from their company. The point is that they keep increasing, but they are NOT what I define as SPAM. They are good organizations trying to communicate. It is just that I cannot take in that much communication and don't want to.

MARKING THINGS READ
I like the option of marking messages as read. That allows me to easily see what is new. On a daily basis I go quickly through my email using the right arrow at the top right of my inbox to scan each message. Most of them can be scanned and then discarded, but there are some that I want to read more carefully or respond to. I click on the star next to the messages that I want to keep. Each time I open a message it is marked as read. In Gmail and (I am pretty sure) in most email programs that means that the message goes fromBOLD to regular font. I can then easily go back to my inbox and put checks in the box next to the ones I have scanned avoiding the ones with stars and click delete or archive. Then, theoretically, once a day or once a week I spend more time taking care of the starred messages.

Apps for your new Device: 10 apps I use and several others to try!

Did you get a new device for Christmas? A device might be an iPhone, an iPad or any sort of tablet or phone that uses Android as an operating system. Because I use an iPhone and iPad that is what is highlighted in this post. Most of these apps have android versions.

Now is the time that you are probably looking for new apps to use on your device. Since there are so many this blog will just share a few favorites that you might want to try.

MY 10 DAILY APPS

I use my iPhone and my iPad several times a day. Here are the ways that I use them. 

1. I use the Clock in the morning for meditation. Once I start meditating I find that having a timer set helps me to focus on my inner self instead of what time is left. I also set it for an hour when I am with a client to help us keep track of the time we work together. I also use it as an alarm clock when I am traveling.

2. I use the Map function, either Maps or Google Maps, to figure out how to get to my next customer's house. I can even have it talk to me to tell me the directions as I drive. Once I even used it when I was already at the address I was supposed to be at, but could not find the building. By following the blue dot that showed where I was in relation to the destination I finally found it.

3. Of course I use it as a phone on a regular basis.

4. I use Messages to text my husband when I just have something short to say like, "on my way home"

5. When I am in a waiting room or flying and want time to pass quickly I play Angry Birds or Candy Crush Saga. These are the kinds of games I like, but there are tons of other games with better graphics and more action.

6. Gmail has an app that connects to my email, so if I am somewhere that I can't get it and need to I can access it. I find it harder to write back on the iPhone, but sometimes I do.

7. Contacts-I use this all of the time to find addresses, emails or phone numbers for people. I really LOVE the fact that it is with me all of the time.  I can add people into it easily.

8. Calendar-I use this all day to schedule things for the future, to see what I am doing in the next few hours or even to look back to see what I did in the past.

9. Grocery IQ - This is an awesome app that keeps my grocery list for me. I can put into it lists of items that I buy from certain stores and then when I am at the store it is easy to look and see what I usually buy there. I use it to make my weekly shopping list and then check off the items as I get them. I never write grocery lists anymore!

10. Lots of sites are websites that also have mobile apps. I use Yelp to find restaurants I am interested in going to OR to review services that I have used. Facebook has an app. These apps make working on your device a bit easier and help you skip the step of having to search for them on a browser

I use the iPhone all day. It has changed how I do things. As you can see, most of the apps that I regularly use came with the phone or are free to download. There are so many apps out there that I don't usually download anything that costs something.

Following is a list of other recommended apps that I found online with a few comments.

Waze - This is another MAP app that is free and comes highly recommended. It can also give you traffic warnings. It can be used in a social way so that others can see where you are driving and you can see their routes.

Shazam - This is an amazing app that can find the name of any music that you hear. It does have to be close enough to the origin of the sound to figure it out. I am in a coffee shop now and it is not able to find the music that is playing.  

i-nigma - By now you have probably seen those square marks that look sort of like bar codes. They are often on advertisements, but you see them all over now and they ask you to scan them for more information. These are QR-Codes. i-nigma is a QR-Code scanner. Here is one that I made with another app called QR Code maker.

Layar- This app lets you get an idea of what people who are using Google Glass might be seeing. It is sort of a futuristic app. Amazing and fun.

Lose It - This app can help you keep track of what you are eating, how much you are exercising and how your weight is changing. It works on calories and tells you the calories of food. It can read barcodes and enter the information from the barcode into the program. 

Tree ID - This is an app I downloaded to find out about a tree that I did not recognize in my yard. It walked me through the identification process. I think it is really handy to have.

Flashlight - This is not an app, but is a part of the regular operating system on an iPhone. If you slide up from the bottom after turning it on you are given a window with a lot of choices. Choose the one that looks like a flashlight and it makes the camera into a very strong light.


As I wrote this and looked for icons I realized that there are many more apps that I use often. There is just so much available!

Some of the apps in this post are from this New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/business/basic-apps-for-smartphones-and-tablets.html?hp&_r=0