How I deal with email

I had in the past one absolute rule for email accounts. If the amount of spam is greater than you can delete, and is also greater than the amount of emails that are important, then you must let the account rot. This rule had served me well until I had finally bothered to get a gmail account. since then I have not bothered to delete most of the amazon and other company spam I receive. Instead I never open them and use their bold titles to break up the list of emails so it's easier to find a past email of interest. These days I first check with the new mail is involved with art and design. If the email seems very important I will instantly move it to my custom folder before touching it. This way I can save it from being shuffled lower on the pile of various oddities. I also do this so I don't have to mix pleasure and work on the same screen. I don't spend that much time on writing emails to friends because most of the time we are already in voice chat with each over. And if we are not, we soon will be. This of course leads to a even more broken etiquette system between us. Most of the time with friends I am just sending a couple of sentences and a picture, link or attachment. When the email deals with work however I definitely make sure I come off as an intelligent professional. Therefore I try to form a clean and error free email that answers all of the questions that the other party had for me. These types of emails are not my strong suit because they are rather too stiff and punctual even for me. In the end I try to only really use email as a way to transfer documents and unlike a text message is more likely to be saved.


I really prefer to take care of serious work using other forms of electronic communications. This comes from my desire to see an instant response to what my correspondent has said so I can gather ideas and see what the other person is thinking. Because my friends and I are usually able to voice chat daily we tend to wait and share by voice whatever would have been written. Even when working with other artists on our personal video game project this summer, I only used email in order to give my artists a design document that they could continue to reference. In return I was sent concept art to critique. This I did do in an email. All other parts of the project where done over group AIM meetings. I think that since I don't have to use email as my only form of communication with distant people that my etiquette might be a little loose. I make sure to spell everything right, but other details like capitalizing and run-on sentences do get overlooked. Email to me is more of a quick way to get a idea from a friend and a user-name from a site. I am sure that my preference to voice chat systems like skype might not be everyone's method for online communication. I am also sure that it leaves my methods for dealing with email a little basic and unsophisticated. But email is just a minor tool for me. I go in, get up-to-date and leave. Important interactions can be handled in a better system of communication most of the time. I do what works.