Over the last couple of days I’ve kept note of how many emails I receive each day as genuine emails or subscriptions to user groups. At around 100 per day that translates to about 36,000 per year. One minute each and I’m looking at 3.5 solid weeks just reading email.
Today I’ve taken some proactive steps to cut down what is coming in. With several of the newsgroups I’ve subscribed to, I have found that my first course of action is a quick scan for what may be interesting then a Select-All Delete key combination. More often than not I just delete the lot. Those subscriptions have been reduced to moderator messages only.
I’m also critiquing the “RSS” feeds I read for those that add real value. One in particular is a dilemma. There is often a lot of noise but every now and then a real gem emerges. Others however often quote the first feed and so I get the news anyway so it may go.