Monday’s turn to Friday’s and time never stops marching forward. Time is such a valuable commodity and one so easily squandered, especially if you work alone, as an entrepreneur and small business owner. Every day I spend a certain amount of time cleaning my inbox of junk mail and attempting to save time by setting filters for the email I do want to save and at the same time attempting to set Eudora (my email program) junk filters to do a better job of automatically trashing the spam. Eudora has a utility called “statistics” which provides an accounting of the use of the software. Today set a new record with 2111 messages received (so far) and over 5 hours using the software to manage, read and compose messages.
I once read that Bill Gates wrote and emailed over 100 messages per day, I’ve never even come close to that kind of production, mind you I don’t have armies of employees to provide leadership to but still I always will think that as a benchmark of greatness – that is to send 100 or more, personally written email messages. It’s probably not likely that Mr. Gates spends several hours per day deleting spam but I’m sure he’s had to deal with the issue and it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s had to change his email address dozens if not hundreds of times.
Part of my problem related to junk-spam is that I’m webmaster to over a dozen websites and personally have another dozen email addresses, so those 24 email addresses are what cause the 2000+ junk spams. Sometimes it’s lower but in case you’re wondering “yes” I’ve tried spam assassin on my server and the volume caused it to break. The other problem is that I’m involved in the on-line gaming industry and both need and want the messages related to Casino, Poker and Sportsbook – just not the spam ones. So, each morning I begrudgingly delete through about 750 messages, always finding several of importance and often a few of great importance, especially those about making money. Amazingly, a person can become very proficient at recognizing and deleting junk. Oh I should have also mentioned that part of the reason for the increase in spam is the new tactic, mostly used by sex-drugs sellers, is to send several hundred per day of the same message and these often come in at the same time, making it easy to delete through, others I recognize in a split instant and delete before they even resolve on the screen. Also, much more Russian and Chinese junk is coming now and since I don’t have those language character sets installed in my computer they render like gooble-de-gook (weird characters of no language).
It always amazes me that Thomas Jefferson was purported to have read every book that was in print during his time and that he could read in many languages. Also, Jefferson carried on correspondence with dozens of people, mostly intellects, often diverse but complicated subject matter electric shaver reviews, in several languages and often times continuing dialogs that carried on for many years. Historians have kept everything that he left behind at the time of his death and apparently he was a meticulous keeper of letters and files etc, the total sum of which would probably rival Bill Gates if it were counted word for word. To this very day scholars are still pouring over the words, thoughts and ideas of Thomas Jefferson. This man was obviously a master of time management, I understand that his bedroom was built so that his bed could face the window, from where he could catch the first rays of the sun as the broker the horizon each morning and that’s how he started each day.
Throughout history there’s accounts of the work habits of great thinkers and high achievers, mostly they share the same trait of getting up early and working hard all day. Now that we live in the information age, it’s said that an average person consumes as much information in 1 year, as a person living in Jefferson’s day would have read in an entire lifetime. So part of the dilemma with striving for a productive existence is deciding what to spend time on, then manage time effectively so that at the end of each day something significant is achieved. Another aspect of the modern day dilemma is keeping us with the information that is important, to remain in a position of understand what’s happening in your chosen field of endeavor (if not an authority). It’s critical to devote time each day to increasing one’s knowledge but not become consumed by it, by sifting through enough credible up to date data and other people’s ideas and/or comments to remain in touch with the leading thinkers and concepts but then most importantly to put the knowledge to use, otherwise without experience there’s nothing to show, no production, no advancement and most likely no financial gain.
No comments yet.