# E-mail is ruining my life!



## nickel (Mar 7, 2008)

_By Ben Limberg
BBC Money Programme_

Two million e-mails are sent every minute in the UK. That is almost three billion each day. But what is the real cost of this information overload?... A recent study found one-third of office workers suffer from e-mail stress. And it is expensive, too. One FTSE firm estimated that dealing with pointless e-mails cost it £39m a year.
…
Ray Tomlinson, … [the person] responsible for the e-mail revolution…: “Spam is a problem... there just seems to be an endless stream of it.”

Professor Cary Cooper (who advises the government on stress in the workplace): “For me, e-mail is one of the most pernicious stressors of our time.”

Loughborough University's Dr Tom Jackson … has five tips he believes can help you take control of your inbox:

Invest in a spam filter…
Target your e-mail. (Does everyone in the cc box really need to be copied in on your words of wisdom?)
Write more carefully.
Reduce interruptions.
Get training.

You can read the full article here.

*nickel’s advice:*







If you are using Outlook Express, try this layout: three panes (folders, contacts and message titles). Go to View > Layout > Preview Pane and make sure _Show preview pane_ is unchecked. Do not click on messages from an unknown sender. What I do: Obvious spam is deleted immediately, otherwise I right-click on the line of the obscure message and go to > Properties > Details > Message source. In this way, I can read the sender’s details and content of the message without actually opening it and activating any hazardous links.


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