First, Happy New Year 2008 everyone!
No, I’m not going to say I’ll blog more, because I don’t know if I will be able to follow through.
All my resolutions for 2008 have the goal of making my life simpler and easier.
My first step is to start with emails to stop the information overload. I’ve been using Outlook since 1996. My PST file was now over 5 gigs!
First thing is that I’ve put this file aside and it’s now an archive. I am starting with a blank slate. Then, I imported my contacts for the old file and I will have to delete a few outdated contacts. I also imported my tasks and I them cleaned up so that I only have a few future tasks to do. For the inbox and email folders, I did not import anything. I really want to start fresh. If I ever need something from the past, I will search my archive.
I’ve also set up my email account so that emails stay on the server for 2 days. Over the holidays, I configured GMail to fetch emails from my server. I already have a Web mail access, but it strains under the load when I keep too many messages. I plan to gradually migrate to GMail to archive my emails instead of using Outlook. This way, I’ll have everything available online. That’s why I’m keeping my emails on the server for 2 days: it is to be sure GMail fetches them.
I’m also continuing to unsubscribe from every newsletter. All of them! I use RSS feeds with Google Reader instead. This way, I will read what I want when I want instead of having my Inbox fill up with things I don’t really need to be distracted with. My goal is that the only emails I eventually see will be from friends and business contacts.
To free yourself from information overload, I recommend reading this post from Tim Ferris: 12 Filtering Tips for Better Information in Half the Time: RSS, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon