My Issue with Mobile Email Solutions

As most of you know I’m a huge fan of BlackBerry smartphones. I usually answer e-mail on-the-go and this allows be to get back to clients faster. However, I noticed one major issue that I haven’t really thought about until a few days ago that I wanted to share with everyone. Mobile e-mail solutions are good because they give you flexibility but it can also be bad because you’re not able to properly manage your inbox. When I was in corporate, I was very anal about how I organized and fixed my Outlook mail client. I’d have several rules that would divert specific emails to several folders and I always made it a point to clean out my inbox twice a day (10:30AM and 3:30PM). A habit I also picked up from the book Getting Things Done is to resolve as much e-mail as I could as soon as I got them. This means replying, forwarding, or trashing e-mails that I get so that nothing is left hanging. Pros and cons  of mobile push e-mail devices after the break.

PROS

• Reply faster to clients, bosses, employees, peers, etc.
• Send out e-mails wherever and whenever.
• Check your inbox to comb through previous important e-mails without opening your laptop.

CONS

• A more expensive phone bill.
• A more expensive phone to buy.
• Cluttered inbox (since you’ll be tempted to not fix it on your laptop anymore)
• Distracting and a bit disruptive. It’s sooooo tempting to open the phone and check e-mail once you see the red bleep on your BlackBerry.

I’m trying to balance everything out these days to make sure that I don’t fall into the trap of using the BlackBerry as my main e-mail communication tool. I turned off the red bleep alert for e-mails and I’m trying to go back to opening emails only at specific times of the day. After all if something is really urgent people will probably SMS or call.

Life was so much simpler with the Nokia 5110. LOL!