1 post tagged “email addresses”

How many email addresses do you have?  What are they for?

I have a bit of an issue with email addresses and recently set about assigning uses to them.  I still have no ability to stick to these ascribed uses because the addresses are in the hands of various people who are unfamiliar with my rules and, ergo, are involuntarily violated.  My accounts are as follows:

• Work email - This is straight forward, it is given t me by my company and it is where my co-workers and customers send me email.  Unfortunately work also assigned me a Dell Laptop and I do 95% of my work on my own Mac laptop.  That means that basically, the work email address is simply a forwarding intermediary to my personal email account that is assigned to work.
• My Personal Work email address (see above).  This is also used for other personal activities that I deem to be work that are not part of my job.  Maybe it is better described a s my Professional Personal Email, but that seems oxymoronic.
• My Personal Personal Email address.  This is the one that I use for personal activities and fun.  It is where my friends should contact me.
• My joke address - Basically, this is a throw away account that I use for nefarious purposes.  It is frequently laden with spam to the extent that it cannot be used for much else.  It also appears with the alias 'Cooter' when received, so it is not business appropriate (learned that the hard way).
• My Spam address - I use this when signing up for anything on the web (software betas, newsletters, services, e.g.) where there is a good chance of spam.  If I do not know a company's full background and their ethics, I use this address.  Ironically, it gets no spam.
• My website address - this is the address associated with my main website.  It appears on the Whois record and in all of the "mail" links on the site.  This is basically a maintenance account that is used for convenience to other people.  It gets little use.
• My secondary website address - See above.  It is used for web business, but has a better alias, and is easy to use on the go.  For some reason it is not fond of email clients and again gets little use.

There you have it.  Seven email accounts.  Three of which get very little use and should be put out of their misery.  I have the feeling this is not an uncommon problem and would love to know how people address this kind of issue.  Many of the best email power-users I know use a single account despite receiving many magnitudes more email than the average user.  It is the power of smart folders, tags, and filters along with some freaky mojo that makes this possible.  It is something that I cannot grasp.