We like Priority Inbox, but think it misses the mark on several levels. We’ll show you there is a better way to managing Email. Many of the ideas in this guide are built on the work of David Allen’s Getting Things Done and Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero. Feel free to modify these ideas to your needs. 

 Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they’ve started.
-David Allen  

Clearly, the problem of email overload is taking a toll on all our time, productivity, and sanity, mainly because most of us lack a cohesive system for processing our messages and converting them into appropriate actions as quickly as possible.
-Merlin Mann  

1. Filter all newsletters, email subscriptions and automated notifications that are not time sensitive to a folder other than your Inbox.  This is basically the Priority Inbox feature, but customized according to your needs. A little work here goes a long way to improving your Inbox. 

• Create a Gmail label (or Outlook Folder) called Filtered.
• Build a filter so that these non-important emails are marked read, archived and labeled as Filtered based on sender, subject or some other unique identifier.
• Check your Filtered label no more than once a day or possibly weekly.

2. Choose when to check Email and process to Inbox Zero every time. 

• Turn off desktop notifications of new emails.
• Commit to checking Email only a few times a day, or once every hour.
• Close your Email client when focusing on a specific task. Multitasking is a myth.
• Apply these criteria to every email the first time you open it to maximize your productivity. Every email has one of these possible outcomes: Do it (if less than two minutes), Delegate it, Delete it, Defer it, Respond.

3. Use David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology to organize your Email. 

• Create labels that match your work contexts such as @Do, @Errands, @Home, @Phone (use the @ signs so that these custom labels sort neatly in your email).
• When emails arrive that require more than two minutes of time label them with the proper context. If the email action can be done anywhere label @Do, remove from Inbox and move to next email. Once the Inbox is empty start working on the items labeled @Do.
• Use other labels as you need. If you have errands to run mark them @Errands and then check that label from your phone to organize errands on the road.
• For extra priority you can create an @ASAP label. Use criteria such as sender to mark these with red @ASAP labels so they stand out.
• When you complete an item, simply remove the label and watch it disappear from your list.
• The key idea is to get everything into an actionable state with the proper context while minimizing the time necessary to forward the action.

4. Create custom Contacts to manage workflows (Gmail and Google Apps only)

• Every Gmail user has the ability to create on the fly email addresses. If your email is jon@company.com then you can email jon+do@company.com and the email will be delivered. Use the + and any word to create a unique email for any Gmail user.
• Create contacts in your address book that match your custom labels. For instance jon+errands@company.com would be a new Contact named Errands.
• Use filters so that any email sent to the Contact you created named “Errands” skips your Inbox, is marked read and is labeled “@Errands”.
• If you remember that you need to pick up your dry cleaning after work send an email to your contact “Errands”. The email will be sent to jon+errands@company.com and auto filtered to your @Errands label. When you get in your car to run errands check your “@Errands” label and process the list.

5. Putting it all together with the Gmail Multiple Inbox feature

• Enable Multiple Inbox in Gmail.
• Make each of your important filters it’s own separate Inbox.
• Enjoy being able to see your Inbox, @Do list and any other custom labels you create at a glance.

Priority Inbox attempts to automatically identify your important incoming messages and separates them out from everything else. Gmail uses a variety of signals to prioritize your incoming messages, including who you emailed most frequently and which messages you’ve recently opened as opposed to which messages you’ve deleted.

The goal is to enable users to spend more time with the emails that matter most. A welcome feature in today’s flooded Inbox.

Here’s a simple video explanation.

Each upgrade represents a significant investment in licensing, migration time and user training.  To make matters worse, some software vendors require an upgrade by discontinuing support on products as soon as 24 months after release!

For those looking to break the cycle of software upgrades there is an option: a move towards Software as a Service (sometimes called Cloud computing). A prime example of Software as a Service is Google Apps. With any web browser Google Apps users have access to a suite of products that are very competitive to Microsoft Office. No installation, no security patches and more importantly, no upgrades!

In addition to controlled costs and easy scalability, one of the major benefits of Software as a Service is the ease of obtaining updates. In fact, new Google Apps features are rolled out almost daily, but there is zero impact on the user as upgrades are done on Google’s Servers. The next time a user logs in new features are available. It’s that simple. No upgrades, no overtime, no risk of losing data. Since the changes are done on a regular basis vs a completely new interface every few years no user retraining!

Given the prospect of staying on the software upgrade cycle and considering a move towards Google Apps what makes sense for your business? If you are struggling with this question, or other ways to effectively manage your technology, we encourage you to contact us at 858-270-3595 x 1 to learn more.

My current filters automatically divert ~20 messages per day to a folder I scan once or twice a week. While I do want to receive these emails, they are mostly automated informational emails that do not require action on my part. With automatic filters routing these emails to a special folder I can check these messages on my schedule, not the senders. I regain control of my email and my time. It’s a refreshing change!

Some highlights from their post:

• Important decision. 15 proposals were submitted. The top four candidates gave oral presentations to city officials. The City Council unanimously chose Google Apps.
  
• Improved collaboration. Much of the city’s work requires multiple people – even multiple departments – to work together. With instant messaging, video conferencing, and simultaneous review and editing of documents by multiple people, employees will have better tools to work together on projects.
  
• Easier remote access. In a fast-paced city government, people often need access to work information when they’re not at work. With Google, employees will be able to access their information from any computer with an internet connection, as well as from their mobile phones.
  
• Expanded storage. With Google, we can provide employees 25x the email storage they have today, saving them from having to make difficult decisions about which emails to keep or delete.
  
• Cost savings. Moving to Google will free up nearly 100 servers that were used for our existing email system, which will lower our electricity bills by almost $750,000 over five years. In short, this decision helps us to get the most out of the city’s IT budget.

With the recent news about Microsoft and T-Mobile losing client data many people are quick to judge all Cloud services as less than trustworthy. This is not true! Don’t judge all companies by the bad experiences of some that make headlines. However, always do your due diligence. We’ve done our due diligence regarding Google Services and we want to share it with you.

The #1 question we get from clients regarding Google Apps is will their information be secure? The answer is yes thanks to the Google File System (GFS), datacenter design and built in privacy/procedural controls.

GFS is Google’s revolutionary way of storing data. If you save a file to Google’s Servers that file is saved into the cloud. That means pieces of that file live on thousands of Servers and each piece of data is stored in multiple places. The only way to access that data is through Google’s interface. GFS is scalable, fast and very secure. From Google’s own website:

Google Apps data is fractured and obfuscated across multiple servers and disks, making it human-unreadable. Data is replicated in multiple data centers for redundancy and consistent availability.

Physically, each Google Datacenter uses the latest technologies to manage power, cooling and connectivity. You can view a tour below (warning: lots of technical jargon).

Notice the large containers that can be easily moved to relocate hundreds of Servers at a time. Did you catch the part about 45,000 Servers in that one Datacenter? From Google:

To reduce exploit risks, each Google server is custom-built with only the necessary software components, and the homogeneous server architecture enables rapid updates and configuration changes across the entire network when necessary.

Lastly, Google has procedural and privacy controls to protect user data stored on their Servers. There is Google’s Privacy Policy which states that users always own their data. Also, Google has established the Data Liberation Front, a team of Google Engineers dedicated to making sure you can always move your data in or out of Google’s Services. Google’s theory, you own the data and can access it at anytime, even to move it away from Google. This info is taken directly from Google regarding security:

People – Google employs a full-time information security team including some of the world’s foremost experts in information, application, and network security. This team is responsible for the company’s perimeter defense systems, security review processes, and customized security infrastructure, as well as for developing, documenting, and implementing Google’s security policies and standards.
Process – Security is part of the Google DNA. Each application is built from the ground up with security in mind. Google applications go through multiple security reviews as part of the Secure Code development process. The application development environment is closely restricted and carefully monitored to maximize security. External security audits are also regularly conducted to provide additional assurance.

As you can see above, your data is exceptionally secure from a data redundancy, physical and procedural standpoint on Google’s Cloud based services.

We are excited to be on the cutting edge of this technology. We offer a full array of services to assist businesses in making the transition to Google products. Contact us for more information!

Now hold on, let us clarify this statement. We currently manage dozens of Exchange Servers which will not be going anywhere anytime soon, but we are taking a stand that if a client needs to upgrade their system or is looking to purchase their first Email solution that our company policy will be to recommend Google Apps.

Simply put, Google Apps is a more cost effective and better solution than Microsoft Exchange. Since the year 2000 there have been four versions of Microsoft Exchange: 2000, 2003, 2007 and now 2010. Each version had a steep learning curve for admins, increased hardware requirements for installation and very little benefit for the average company. In addition, users were locked into using Outlook as the primary client (which hasn’t evolved much at all in 10 years!). This Microsoft forced upgrade path cost clients a lot of money and didn’t provide much benefit over previous versions. (For those of you who cannot bear to think of not using Outlook, see our previous blog post about Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook)

Google Apps provides 10x the storage, a built in best-in-class SPAM and AntiVirus filter and includes Google Docs and Google Sites! Also, users get the power of Google Search for their email and the flexible and powerful GMail client interface.

The GMail client interface is truly one of the hidden gems of a migration to Google Apps. It is speedy and customizable. It can be melded into just about any workflow and with our training, it will transform your relationship to Email. That last sentence is so powerful we’ll repeat it. We will transform your relationship to email!

So, we are saying NO to Microsoft Exchange and YES to Google Apps. If you are ready to work smarter and take back control of your Email, then contact us today!

Google has dropped another bombshell with Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook.  This is big news! Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook allows users to use Outlook as their interface to Google Apps hosted email. While we consider the Google interface to be superior to Microsoft Outlook, this option will ease the transition for many organizations looking to switch.

Congrats to Google as they continue to move closer to providing a seamless path to transitioning to Google Apps. Learn more in the video below.

UPDATE: 06-15-2009 See this article from CRN regarding Google Apps Sync and Microsoft Email.

Via the Settings Menu, click on Web Clips and click disable.
Via the Settings Menus, click on General and Enable Keyboard shortcuts.
Via Settings, the Labs tab enable Labs (if necessary).
From the Labs settings area click enable on the following:

Signature Tweaks
Right Side Chat
Right Side Labels
Default Reply to All
Forgotten Attachment Detector
Mark as Read Button
Send & Archive
Undo Send
Title Tweaks
Google Calendar Gadget
Google Docs Gadget

A few notes on our favorite settings:

-Keyboard shortcuts is incredibly handy, once enabled type a ? to bring up a quick link dialog of available shortcuts.
-Send & Archive. Simply the most powerful way to keep your Inbox clean. A must have.
-Undo Send. Give yourself 10 seconds to retrieve an email. Very handy for last second edits.
-Right side labels and chat. Get everything on one page with a dashboard look and feel.

We describe SPAM as a cat and mouse game. Postini has built the best mousetrap available, but the mice (SPAMMERS) are always fighting back. To share what we see from our console we’ve included a few screenshots of the email traffic we process. This sample was taken in the evening (between 8-9PM) so traffic is not as high as it would be during business hours.

In addition to best-in-class Email filtering Postini also provides up to the minute AntiVirus scanning of all email traffic.

Chart of email traffic for 60 minutes. The blue line represents mail that was actually delivered.

Pie chart of email for past 60 minutes. 18% of email was delivered for this one hour timeframe. At peak times the ratio of delivered email will be as low as 7%.

Raw statistics for 60 second interval. 882 messages processed, or ~15 per second!