As a public service…

Today I realized that since no one else is covering this important area of concern, that it is up to me to do it. This important subject is how to take care of an overcrowded in-box. For too long this has been ignored, and today I hope to set things right and return our nation to the efficiency of days past.

We all know how it goes. You're away from your computer for a couple of days. Perhaps a long weekend is all it takes. You decided to check your e-mails and you find something on the order of 100-200 messages! What to do?

Step One: Do not panic! It isn't YOUR fault. Remember this! The tendency is to assume that every e-mail from every sender is an important message from a friend or family member who really needs your kind support and/or assistance.

This is, of course, a total crock! Chances are that even if somewhere in your e-mail list a friend or family member's screen name does appear, it's probably just a forward featuring a set of pictures, or a joke you've seen before. Most of the messages, as we know, are going to be spam of some sort.

Step Two: Identify any and all advertisements and delete them.

If some day you come to your inbox and find that you have say 5-10 e-mails to respond to, and you have some upcoming online shopping to take care of for Christmas or a Birthday, then by all means, take a careful look at these…you might save some money.

But right now you've got 100-200 e-mails to respond to!

Step three: Identify all e-mails from well-meaning-individuals-who-don't-consider-it-spamming-to-send-
you-several-newsletters-per-week, and eliminate them.

In times past people used to craft a short letter of the year's events and send this out with Christmas cards ("…Tommy graduated high school…our goldfish, Goldie, went to that big aquarium in the sky…"). But now I get rambling notes on events (sometimes very personal events, mind you) on a several times weekly basis.

You may feel guilty since you probably once said something stupid like, "Sure! I'd love to get your newsletter!" to this person. Don't worry, they too will write more.

Step four: Read the "re" line closely.

By now you have eliminated around 50-80% of the e-mails in your inbox. So you can afford to take things a little slower.

Read the line that tells you what the letter is supposed to be about.

If this letter contains a string of numbers (for example "00066045097860530xxz") after a semi-intelligent looking subject line, feel free to erase it. It is probably some on-line stock broker, and let's face it, if you're still answering your own e-mail you can't afford to take a chance on any "hot tips". Leave that to Bill Gates…and you know he isn't answering HIS own e-mail.

Speaking of Bill Gates; you can safely eliminate any and all e-mails saying "Incredible Savings from Microsoft!" or similar. They are all fakes. Bill didn't get to be fabulously wealthy by giving the consumer "fabulous" anything.

But I digress…

When reading the "re" line, also avoid things like "Hi, it's Bill, long time no see". Unless you have a pal named Bill who has until recently been blind, you can just about bet this is a cheap come on.

The problem with this part of the process is that it's more subjective than the previous steps. Perhaps that's why it's sometimes called the "Subject Line. You'll have to use your judgment here. But this 30-50% of the e-mails in your inbox could take a considerable amount of your time, until you learn the subtleties of dealing with it. I suggest you start with a short regimen of randomly trashing 2-3 of these questionables a day and increasing until you're randomly trashing 50-60% as soon as you log on. When you start getting angry phone calls from your best friend demanding to know why you haven't responded, or your spouse moves out, then you'll know to taper off a bit.

Step Five: Actually opening an e-mail before trashing it.

Up to this point you should not have opened any e-mails at all. This should have whittled the list down to manageable size. But don't give up on deletions just yet! Many seemingly reasonable people send senseless e-mails without any conscious knowledge at all. You have likely been the recipient of one or more of these. Be very careful at this point, not to assume that just because the e-mail appears to be A)Legitimate and B)from a friend, that it is indeed worth reading.

If, for example, the e-mail comes with a rainbow-color background, you can safely delete it while the background is downloading. The same goes for any e-mail with excessively large purple type. If you get one containing both, it's probably best to delete it as quickly as possible, and contact your local civil defense agency in case you've been accidentally contaminated. (Important Note: This rule of thumb doesn't apply to your spouse, or current paramour! Failure to respond to a similar note in these circumstances may result in severe loneliness for an extended period of time. You have been warned.)

Similarly, e-mails which begin with, "I thought you'd like to see this", UNLESS FROM YOUR ATTORNEY, can usually be deleted without any guilt whatsoever. The main reason being that these e-mails are like re-gifted fruitcake. Whoever sent this e-mail (generally containing a dozen or so photographs of very cute animals engaged in disgusting, but socially acceptable, behavior followed by a number of oversized captions pointing out just how cute the whole thing is, in case you missed that somehow) probably sent it out to everyone in their address book. They don't know who it got sent to, no more than they realize that they sent it to you five times in the past year!

If the e-mail begins with "IMPORTANT VIRUS WARNING! DO NOT DELETE!" Feel free to delete it. This is based on two facts. A) Usually these are fakes, blind copied to every new e-mail addressee that the Phishers can get ahold of and B) Why would your pal assume they're so "in the loop" that they'd get to word on a potentially crippling virus before you would? I mean, by the time you read their e-mail the virus has probably circled the world thirty times and infected your hard-drive at least four. (Unless you drive a Mac, in which case you're more or less immune, like me ;-)

Step Six: Read and respond to the letters that may actually have a purpose.

You've now eliminated 90-99% of e-mails that do not actually affect you directly. You may now safely respond to the remaining e-mails. Reasonable statistical data show that of these remaining letters, some may actually benefit you at some point in the near future. Many will be dead-ends. Some (if you're the sort who engages in on-line dating) may end with you knocked out in an alleyway missing your wallet. But in one way or another these e-mails have the potential to change your life. For better or worse, at least they haven't wasted your time completely.