Comments on: Preventing Email Bankruptcy: From 1920’s Postcards to Video Confessions

By: Marvin

Marvin — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:41:19 +0000

This might have been covered in another thread (yes, I took a look but couldn’t find it) but in reference to Gary Vaynerchuk’s ‘out-of-office’ video, he says that if something is time-sensitive then the viewer/writer is supposed to respond with URGENT-URGENT-URGENT in the headline.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but doesn’t that put Gary at the mercy of whomever thinks their business is urgent but may not be urgent to Gary? In other words, doesn’t it take the decision power of what to respond to - which is, after all, the point of the exercise - away from Gary and give it to somebody else? Seems a little self-defeating to me, if someone on the other side of the planet or across the hall can get Gary’s attention by putting URGENT-URGENT-URGENT in the header regardless of whether it’s vital to Gary or not.

Has anyone else tried this? Has it worked? Or do you find yourself now jumping to respond to URGENT-URGENT-URGENT emails that are anything but.Comments?

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By: Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:11:40 +0000

Thanks for the comments, all!

For my Danish-speaking friends,

If someone else is transcribing or translating, the page will be locked to avoid overwrites, but please check back. Thank you in advance for even a few words of help!

http://www.dotsub.com/films/timferriss

All the best and tak skal du have!

Tim

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By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:18:48 +0000

I stupidly put off a compltely broken email filter but also way too many subscription for sales from stores ive orderd from so i just deleted over 10,000 emails mostly all spam junk in the last day hitting ctr-shift click del way to many times over many many hours and im surprised my eyes still work.... My brain is jumbled. I did use a spam filter on my email client to help me seperate some of the spam to delete but then i checked if for false positives lol. Aranging emails by subject or sender makes it much faster to find spam and also huge amounts of subscribed junk than by date. Anyways its all taken care of and wont happen again. Checking email obssevily only seems to happens when theres a crazy romantic interest invading my brain otherwise i only check it a few times a day. I used to check blogs like crazy but now i got google reader. I love google reader:)

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By: Nathan Zeldes

Nathan Zeldes — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:56:09 +0000

Also mentioned in the NYT article: we (researchers from industry and academia who study and try to solve the information overload problem) have just created a non-profit dedicated to raising awareness and promoting solution R&D: the Information Overload Research Group.

There is a good deal of progress in both the understanding of the problem (which transcends email - it’s also about interruptions and distractions) and the development of innovative solutions. If you’re interested, you’re invited to join us via http://www.iorgforum.org

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By: Michael Pedersen

Michael Pedersen — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:36:23 +0000

Hi,

I’m from Denmark, and i hadn’t seen the clip before. Great clip. I read your book for the first time about a year ago, and it’s great to see it finally catching on over here (hopefully).

Gonna try and translate some of the video.

Best,
Michael

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By: Alexander

Alexander — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:10:19 +0000

I would have loved to do the whole transcription, but apparently someone else has locked it so I can't touch it. If you need any translations done for free in the future, feel free to contact me. I am fluent in Swedish and Danish, and can understand Norwegian with no problems. Og til dig der stjal hele arbejdet: grrrrr ;)

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By: Bam

Bam — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:15:48 +0000

Relaaaax Dude! Who is this guy anyway?

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By: Rayni Rijke

Rayni Rijke — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:25:59 +0000

Hi Tim,

I must say your tactics on email batching work! As a college student you might think i have free time to spare. To bad it isn’t that way. I’m an intern right now and yes, I have to deal with email. I Only check it when i come in in the morning and around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I can produce more and i don’t feel like missing anything.

The next step is to limit my time spend on IM and that kind of stuff. I’ve send an email out to friends telling them to stop sending me those stupid forward emails. It worked and no one got mad. :)

I’m working on a few muzes right now too so i can take retirements BEFORE beginning to work. that is.. if I ever start working.

Greetings from Holland

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By: Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:21:21 +0000

@A Swede

Thanks for looking at the Danish clip! I don’t really any question; I just need it subtitled in English!

The site DotSub, where it’s linked (http://www.dotsub.com/films/timferriss) allows anyone to subtitle the video in English.

Please help! Tusen tak :)

Tim

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By: Farfield

Farfield — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:07:17 +0000

Very funny, I just watched two of Gary Vaynerchuk's video posts yesterday, I didn't know of him before. Sees like a very funny and smart guy. Thanks for the info, Tim!

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