Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Quick Tip: Create a Bacn Folder

By Jon:

How many emails do you get in a day? If you're like me, too many (but not as many as in the above photo -- sheesh!!). I've been trying to filter down my emails into something actionable, necessary and important, rather than a cacophony of noise. My most recent and most interesting filter has been to create a Bacn folder.

What is Bacn? Bacn is similar to Spam, except that you the user signed up to receive the messages. This can include social networking messages, blog/messageboard comments, and more. I find myself distracted throughout the day when these messages arrive, and rather than move to my next work-related email, I login to my Facebook to see what strange app I've been invited to partake in.

To remedy this distraction, simply make a new folder in your email app of choice and create a series of rules to route all social network site communication to this folder. It's as easy as that.

As it's been said, Bacn is "email you want but not right now." As is true with most things in life, with these messages out of sight, they're out of mind. I've set a GTD reminder to review my Bacn folder on a regular but infrequent basis; as such, these non-urgent messages can wait and don't stand in my way.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I am going to try this out today.

Anonymous said...

Jon,

This is a pretty useful way of handling your newsletters and alerts. If you still experience any problems with bacn, you should check out OtherInbox.

Our service launched publicly a few weeks ago. Each user gets their own domain name (you.otherinbox.com) and they create multiple addresses (facebook@you.otherinbox.com, amazon@you.otherinbox.com, etc.) for the sites they visit. All correspondence is then automatically organized and managed in your one OtherInbox account.

We are still in private beta, but here is a URL with an invite code for you and your readers:

http://beta.otherinbox.com/signup/thecorporatehack

We hope you enjoy using the service, and we look forward to hearing your feedback on your blog.

Thanks!

~ The OtherInbox Team