A useless guide on how to handle email

Dear your-name-here (possibly with some typos, but you know it is for you),

I hope this finds you well. I know this comes amidst a hundred emails wishing you the same for the same, but this one is different; this one will teach you how to get rid of about ninety-five of those.
First thing first: Following this guide, you may lose some... wait, sorry, where are my manners? Good day, or good evening if you are a desperate case.
Now, last thing second: I will break away from the tradition of placing the disclaimer at the bottom of the page in small font and will lay it right here, in normal-size font. I would even put it in red colour, or bold, but it would not look great on the website. It is only fair to warn you that by following this guide you may lose some opportunities to make millions from princes in countries far away or bank investors in countries nearby, and you might miss some important meetings and social events. The upside is that you will miss some important meetings and social events.

Are you ready to continue? Good, let us move on.
Firstly (or thirdly, if you keep track across paragraphs), you cannot get rid of all email. Well, you could, but some of it is rather good. It is useful to know when your chocolate-caramel-fudge-candy-filled-jumbo-donuts are shipping and if your bidding for the slimming shakes was accepted on eBay. It would also save you from refreshing the page every fifteen minutes on that German website for check for new clips if you subscribed to their newsletter. This is a compilation of best practices and recommendations from CEO's, entrepreneurs, journalists, celebrities, rich people (or their wives/husbands) who receive tons of email and still manage to be successful. Based on personal experience but without being successful or rich, I am going to explain how most of them are wrong and how the ones that are not wrong can be improved. You will get the best stuff in a single place: here. No ads*, no paywall or pop-ups with requests for donations. I do like donations, they are my favorite source of income along with alms and inheritance. But I would not ask for them.
Without further ado, straight into the topic. I am not the kind to digress in lengthy introductions with pompous statements and embellishments. Or to add unnecessary suspense to keep readers stuck to the screen for... right, where was I? I'll start, in no particular order.

6. Wake up early to read email. I was surprised to find out people would wake up unnaturally early just to get a head-start on email. This is a disaster: you still read email, and you also ruin your sleep. You not only damage your eyes and the important bit that sits behind them, but sleep is important. And I doubt people who do this will catch up later during the day power-napping at their desk. Utterly inefficient.

11. Look for long, important emails that would take less time to discuss in real-life. This is a mixed one. Personally, I would delete them first and wait for a come-back to see if they are important indeed. It is surprising to see how many turned out not to be after only a couple of weeks. Patience is a virtue. I do not have it, but I have the next best thing: laziness. If it turns out the topic was important, it is better to discuss it face to face, for several reasons. No, human interaction is not one of them. But you do not need to type long emails. And if your ideas were wrong, you may pretend later that you inferred something different all along. Verba volant, scripta manent. Pretentiousness aside, people have misunderstood the real value of this saying. Also, make sure there are no witnesses. Or that they will not be able to testify. How? Sorry, this is not a guide about abuse and intimidation. But I shall make a note of this.

3. If you want to receive less email, send less email. This little gem comes from a CEO, but I still agree. I write close to no email. And when I do, they are very short. Usually it is 'Tl;dr' or 'Unsubscribe'. If you are a CEO, I would imagine 'You are fired' or 'Excellent, you should work on this; you have until tomorrow evening to showcase a working demo' work just as well. I imagine the opposite may also work: if you have the patience, reply with long tedious emails. If you do not feel inspired, just find a long psalm related to the subject of office supplies or sales and distribution and make sure you attach an 18 MB corrupted PDF and reference to it. Particularly useful if you know they'll read on a mobile device.

8. Get one or more assistants to handle your email. If I could afford that, I do not see how this can be a problem in the first place; I would simply make the problem disappear by telling the captain to sail the yacht in an area where I can pretend to have no signal on my Vertu.

2. Ask people to indicate until when they need a reply. The irony is that this suggestion comes from a woman. Call me a misogynistic sow all you want, sisters, but women tend to be as bad at estimating time as men are at estimating the length of personal items. That aside, any deadline is irrelevant as a matter of principle (unless pizza delivery is involved). Should you miss a mark, you can always blame on some problems with your email account. "Yes, boss, again. I see it was supposed to be done on Thursday, but I just saw this 2 minutes ago, that is why I called. I really do not understand what those guys in IT are doing, but it is dreadful. That migration to cloud email only made things worse. Remember it also happened a few weeks ago before that meeting with Logistics?" If you are the proactive type, set an out-of-office-auto-reply with a return date after the deadline.

4. Never begin an email with "I". Apparently, this teaches you how to think through an issue. Could be, I have no idea. I usually begin with "You" and end with a drastic verb. Sometimes, when I want to give it a personal touch, I replace "You" with "Your mother" or "Your foster child".

24. Handle priority emails now and the rest later, at a less busy time. It sounds reasonable, but it is like setting up a scheduled task to delete emails later instead of deleting them right now. I still prefer to check in which warehouse my parcel of biscuits is at the moment. And then delete everything else.

8b. Forward the email to an appropriate person in the company, adding a question mark. I think this makes you look like a bit of a dictator. My personal take on this is to simply forward it to a random person that has nothing to do with that topic, without adding anything. Mysterious is better than bossy prick.

10. No emails one hour before bedtime; no emails early in the morning; no emails while spending time with family. Not much to add here. Except for: to make this better, sleep more often and wake up late. Oh, and it does not matter whose family it is.

31. Whenever you add someone in your address book, make a note on what you discussed with that person during the meeting so that you can get straight to the point. It sounds practical, but when I am writing an email I know exactly what I want to ask for. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing an email. If they want something, they can write the email. And I can delete it.

7. Whenever you become overwhelmed, declare Inbox bankruptcy, and start fresh. You might be tempted to think this sounds interesting, but you will sound like a whining hipster if you say it out loud. But do not stop there, please do go through the entire list of simple things you are incompetent at. Why not start fresh every morning? Silently, with just a quick hiss or two. Like an armpit deodorant. Yeah! Two can play the game of spouting stupid things that sound interesting.

9. Answer quickly, straight away, to any email. Interesting, but it can get tiresome. Especially with order confirmations and newsletters from noreply@some.mail. If you are serious about being quick, use automatic replies.

22. Never reply when you are emotional. I am very emotional behind my cold-blooded appearance, this goes straight up my alley. When asked why the weekly report was late two months I remind people that I have felt very emotional this winter and I could not handle any email. Do not use this excuse in August. Adapt. The season needn't be set in stone.

19. Do not allow emails between employees. Before you pop the champagne, it continues with encouraging people to meet and (gasp!) talk to their colleagues. As I am sipping from the cup of flat disappointment, I am pondering if that CEO thought how many of their staff will start sending sensitive information and confidential attachments through Yahoo or Hotmail. The silver-line for me is that NSFW replies from those addresses can be attacked in a lawsuit as grounds for dismissal.

37. Block access to emails after working hours and during weekends. It makes people feel less stressed and more in control of their personal life. I found out recently this has been long implemented at my workplace, too, but I have no idea when. I only check my emails between 10:45 and 14:50 on Tuesday and Friday anyway.

108. Fake business-cards. I could not agree more with this one. Partly because this is my idea. An accidental typo when you order your business cards can reduce the amount of email by 41%.

109. Automatic replies and rules. If there is one thing to remember from this guide, is to configure the auto-reply and automatic rules. One is proactive, one is reactive. And both immensely practical. If you feel intimidated by how many options there are when configuring rules, focus on those for that say Mark as read and Delete. The other thing to remember is that donations are welcome (in case you forgot, which I bet you did).


Do you have some ideas of your own for handling email? Feel free to email them to me. They are in safe hands.



*Disclaimer: Please disregard this part if I decided to put ads in the website later. If I do, it is only to still have a disclaimer at the end, despite saying earlier that I would not. And nothing else. Oh, and money. 
No pop-ups, though. People who do pop-ups should be subscribed to Deepak Robbins' hourly newsletter.

New Year's revolution

If you look around, the first day of the new year is the best day for a new start. And if you look around very quickly, you may get dizzy and fall.
People pick the first day of the new year as the best day for new commitments, significant decisions to take on difficult tasks they've been struggling with in the past year(s) and so on. Rather often, it's to start that diet, give up on smoking or drinking, exercise more and so on. And what better way to start it than sometime past noon (because you went to bed quite late last night) with a coffee and cigarette, to pass that heavy migraine from last night, hung-over and bloated from that one last amazing dinner? Because from now on it's salad days, it's waking up early to go to the gym and then serious work to outdo your best which hasn't been that good in the past years.
OK, maybe not necessarily today, but definitely on Monday. Today it's so nice outside and quiet indoors, and it's a holiday anyway so you're not really supposed to work. And the fridge is still full. It would be a shame to throw away all the food and cake. There are starving children in other parts of the world, you know. So: can you pass that bottle and ashtray, please? Yes, some cake would also be nice, thank you.
There's something not quite right with this approach. You already pushed it to Monday, and by Wednesday you're already exhausted. These stupid New Year's resolutions, merely because of peer pressure and idiots around you asking what your plans for this new fresh start are. What were you thinking, really? And you're not even half-way through the weekend. This is wrong.

A better approach, based on an ancient idea I've just made up is to avoid overburdening yourself from such daunting undertakings. Try to think long-term. Whatever you plan to do, think it through a bit. Sure, it sounds great on Dec. 31st, but will it also sound that great two months later? Or even by the end of the first week (see above)? Or even by the beginning of the first week (see above)? Try to take things easily, but steadily. Also, make it enjoyable. Set checkpoints, and then set some small rewards after each, too. Indulge a bit, you're only human. Otherwise it won't last. You won't last.
And what better way to make it more rewarding than starting with the reward itself? So: can you pass that bottle and ashtray, please? Yes, some cake would also be nice, thank you. Wow, this new year looks quite promising already. You can never go wrong with ancient wisdom.
Happy New Year, everyone! If your destiny guides your steps near the couch, drop by to wish me Happy New Year, too (without the 'everyone' and exclamation mark bit). If I'm not there, look by the fridge. Hurry up, though, it's cold there.

One more thing. Actually, no, I'm done already. I only added this because a post with less than 500 words would look lazy. And it was only 498 before this 'One more thing' thing. I could have squeezed a couple of superfluous epithets here and there, but I'm not that kind of person. I have integrity. And now that I'm done with this, I remembered I also have some cake. Probably not for long, though. And then all I'll have left is integrity. That's the kind of person I really am.

A good title is hard to find.

One of the check-boxes people feel the need to tick when they visit Australia is kangaroos. Kangaroos are sneaky predators that strike when you expect it the least. Their modus operandi involves sending their cubs to play with tourists and look cuddly and friendly. They accept your food and if you had something more in mind, they'd say yes to that, too. And while you're busy aaaawing and oohing and getting your fancy digital camera ready for a memorable snap, they steal your phone. Quickly and discreet, they operate regardless of the make and model, assuming it's been made less than 3-4 years ago; the only thing they don't care for is really old phones, like those that grandma or hillbillies are still using.
If you believe the ads, the most discreet thing in the world is a tampon. Tampons are also said to be major confidence boosters. Anyway, you cannot really trust the advertising agencies. They try to make evil corporations and bad products look good.
The marsupium is a perfect place for a kangaroo to hide the phones they steal from tourists. Only the females have a marsupium, the males usually stash them in a pouch they carry around the neck and back. Seldom may a young male be seen carrying a belt pouch. This is counter-intuitive, as they don't have a belt nor even trousers, but it makes them popular among middle-age and old-age men who carry similar accessories. These men wear the pouches around the waist despite of their trousers ending much higher, with the belt neatly tucked anywhere between the chest and armpits. They are less vigilant and observant, which makes them an easy target for the male kangaroo willing to put aside any fashion sense. A kangaroo in trousers would look funny in a ridiculous way, just like any of the beldams from 'Sex and the City' would look like regardless of what they're wearing. If you have any doubts at this point, no, you still cannot trust the advertising agencies.
Once the quota is reached, the young kangaroos get back to their parents and pass them the stolen goods. If they've done a good job they are allowed to keep one phone for themselves to play video games in which they're supposed to take care of some monkeys on the screen performing mundane activities, or other various games. There are not many monkeys in Australia, mostly for fiscal reasons and seasonal allergies.
Adult kangaroos are partial to iPhones, especially the black ones, and keep them for themselves. They rarely sell them, and only towards the end of the touristy season, when new models are released. They use the other phones mainly for trading with the koalas. Koalas are also marsupials like the kangaroos, but the main difference is that they're not so fond of iPhones. Regardless of colour -as they tend to pay attention to HR trainings- but mainly the black ones. Or any other colour. The white (and gold) phones, regardless of make and model are usually coveted by the inferior mammals, such as hipsters. The tourists also like to see and play with koalas, but koalas are not as physically endowed as the kangaroos and rarely manage to steal phones themselves. Their focus area is jewelry, as people holding them to take pictures have their necks and wrists exposed for extended periods of time. If the koalas were ninjas, they could easily strangle tourists and twist their arms if they wanted to. In this case, they could also steal the phones for themselves. There are not many ninjas in Australia, but most likely for different reasons than the monkeys; they're quite resilient to allergies and make excellent accountants. Koalas use the phones to search for meditation and yoga videos on the internet. This reflects in their calm and laid back attitude, particularly in areas with excellent signal. This also reflects in their lack of interest for becoming ninjas, which is fortunate because such a trend could negatively impact tourism in Australia and the subsequent scarcity of available mobile phones would affect the kangaroos' mood and recreational activities.
The old phones that nobody wants were favored by the dodos, on a neighboring island (and by grandmas and hillbillies, too; that's correct, I'm glad you paid attention because otherwise this story could be confusing). Their beaks could handle big buttons much better than touchscreens. Allegedly, they were also colour-blind and indifferent to high screen resolutions or the ability to read emails on anything other than large monitors. This hasn't been confirmed by scientists yet, and the interest in this topic is slowly fading, unfortunately. Well, we all know what happened to them eventually; this is a good lesson about what can happen if you don't keep up with evolution.

There are many beautiful examples of evolution in nature; the symbiosis between kangaroos and koalas is one of them. At the opposite end of the spectrum we have the advertising agencies, 'Sex and the City' and people who like golden phones. The dodos' extinction gives us hope, though..

As opposed to

No foreplay, this is also about a movie. A more recent one, depending on when you're reading, about Emily Blunt traveling in time.

Even when it's not for real (it's never for real, actually, as confirmed by Professor Hawking), time traveling is no easy task, you cannot just go in at once. It takes patience and perseverance.You start first by skewing time a bit (The Adjustment Bureau), then do it a couple of times (Looper), and only then you're ready to go back and forth on a daily basis. Judging by the trend, she must be quite disappointed with the present.

Unfortunately the future is not much better, as it involves war, total destruction and robots from France (they are ugly and have tentacles so you would be forgiven to mistake them for actual Frenchmen, but it is explained in the movie). Worse, you discover that frequent time travel involves an annoying midget following you everywhere, no matter how many times you try to kill him. I will not spoil the story too much by telling he's Tom Cruise, the writers have done a much better job at spoiling the story already.

Like most of the movies this summer, it begins with Messi doing tricks with a can of Pepsi. Then some more ads, some trailers, where the hell did I put those 3d glasses?, and finally Mr. Cruise.

Despite his initial reluctance to fight, Mr. Cruise is traveling back and forth in time, fighting alien robots. Whenever he dies, he can start over and change things a bit to live a bit longer. Like in a game where you can't save and you start over every time you die (but unlike a game where you can't save, you cannot even press Pause when you need to go to the loo). In his quest he's aided by Mrs. Blunt, who's quite feminist at first but she gets around rather quickly. I guess his badass suit -that everyone is wearing- and convincing story help a bit and break the ice. Probably the small wooden box he stands on also helps a bit, although we don't see it in the movie. I'm not telling he's small (you can see that for yourself), but if he had played in the Hobbit a lot of money could have been saved on the CGI. A few deaths later, he's getting quite good and actually learns to configure the suit and use it to kill the baddies. Surprisingly for an American weapon, it has instructions in multiple languages (not Arabian, though, for whatever reason). He also gets extra help from Mrs. Blunt, who helps him in her spare time. In her busy time, she's doing push-ups or Yoga. Contributing to the overall success is a brilliant professor who looks like a not-so-brilliant janitor. This professor built a device that can somehow help with time travel issues. You know it works, as your eyes get colored in black when everything goes alright.

One of the more intense moments of the movie is when Mr. Cruise gathers his mates around him and says "I know what I'm about to say will sound crazy". I put popcorn aside, moved to the edge of the seat and held my breath waiting for him to say "Scientology is drivel". But he did not, he went on about time travel (which, in comparison, is not that crazy). Such a lost opportunity, that could have been the best (and unexpected) movie ending in a long time. So that was not the most intense moments of the movie, after all.
Another intense moment is when she wants to shoot him as usual but he tells her not to, as he's not coming back this time because he lost the ability to rejuvenate (you wouldn't expect Mr. Cruise to use such elevated words, and you're right; he doesn't). Unfortunately, this moment is spoiled again, this time by Mrs. Blunt, as she doesn't shoot him.
There's another scene packed with suspense towards the end of the movie, when they drive a ship (no, I actually got it right) between Eiffel Tower and Le Louvre in a final attempt to destroy the ultimate alien. Paris looks as lovely as ever, but you notice this only briefly, as tension escalates during the chase (I still didn't get to go to the loo). Despite the frantic pace, it takes a while, probably as long as it takes to walk that distance in real life. And it should take even less, as there's no people getting in the way and offering to sell them Eiffel Tower key-chains or bottled water for 3 euros. But, as you may have guessed already, it's just another disappointing moment, as Mr. Cruise does not get killed. On the plus side, the movie ends shortly after this.

One thing that confuses me is why in military planes people stay sideways. Not only it's less efficient, as you can only carry a few people in one plane and pollute more, but you'd think facing forward would be more intuitive, especially if jumping from the plane is expected at some point and you're probably curios about what's ahead. The best explanation I could come up with is that they're flying toward East, and they want to avoid sun going in their eyes (even those wearing sunglasses). Either that, or they want to make sure they don't bother anyone when they need to use the bathroom. Of course, it could only be to encourage communication.