Handle Your E-Mail to Live Better than a Billionaire

Good morning, Live Better than a Billionaire-a-Holics!

Are you feeling motivated this morning? I certainly hope so. I know that I am!

I feel like I'm on thin ice in bringing up this subject. Tens of millions of people have written about e-mail practices . . . and I clearly haven't read all of those good ideas. In addition, I'm good at understanding the concepts behind things . . . but I'm hardly a technical expert.

So please bear with my limited perspective, and I encourage you to chime in with your comments.

I got my first e-mail address around 1996. I remember being amazed when someone used it. At first, I didn't want to be bothered so I would ask some of my computerphile colleagues to check my e-mails and print them out for me. I would write out an answer and my colleagues would type in the answer and send it back. This usually took about five minutes a day. Then I began to notice that I didn't see these people as often because they were spending hours a day performing this function for our company. Perhaps they were even doing a little Web surfing. What did I know?

I suspect that many billionaires rely on this sort of system today. Someone screens through their e-mails and sorts out the ones that require personal attention. This may simply involve forwarding the e-mail to another account. The billionaire can then reply personally or dictate a reply for someone else to type in.

I think this approach is a trap. It insulates the billionaire too much from the outside world . . . something that the billionaire already has problems with.

I will leave all of the little tips to you about how to implement what I am about to describe . . . but the key concept is to be accessible and inaccessible at the same time.

To do this, I favor having several e-mail addresses:

1. One for each business or volunteer activity that may attract a contact. By knowing the source, you can more easily understand the context of the contact. Otherwise, many e-mails are unfathomable.

2. One individual address that's published to the world to see what sort of spam people send. This tells you a lot about the mood among other people. Be sure that this address is with a service that allows large files and makes it easy to delete e-mails.

3. One for your family. You want to get their messages because this usually means they are having trouble reaching you in other ways.

Next, I suggest that you create electronic and hard copy back-ups of what's important that arrives. You'll find it much easier to organize those copies in some physical way than you will all of your e-mail files. If it's important enough to back-up, it's important enough to keep the original e-mail. The copies will also give you a way to get back to the original e-mail if you need to do so. I do this with student profiles, papers, projects, and correspondence.

Create files of people you may want to contact again by category. This saves going through your address book every time for everyone you've ever contacted or been contacted by.

Create templates that allow you to give increasingly better answers to common questions . . . by continually improving the templates.

Avoid auto-responders so that people receive the personal touch from you.

Could a billionaire do better? I doubt it.

A billionaire is always the object of much interest and desire. Can you imagine the marriage proposals and business opportunities that are received? With so much greater volume, a billionaire is likely to be less open to access than you are. And that one access may make all the difference to you or to someone else.

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N.B. As you can tell, I'm experimenting with color. Let me know what you like and what I should change about my use of color.

Please let me know what else you would like to learn, and I'll do my best to help in future blog entries.

Here are some upcoming subjects:

Tomorrow, you and I will explore how to pick an exciting new area to learn in 2006!

On Saturday, let's take a look at how to take a beautiful, relaxing break from the holiday busyness.

Sunday will be our occasion to think about giving spiritual gifts.

On Monday, I would like to thank Tom for suggesting we look at how to enjoy movies at a theater better than a billionaire. At current prices, few except billionaires will be making this viewing a custom.

Tuesday, I'll reveal the secrets of turning a profit from taking a course on developing your millionaire mind.

On Wednesday, we'll look into how you can develop a billion dollar new business better than a billionaire! Don't miss this post.

If you are new to this blog, be sure to check out the updated table of contents entry that I posted on December 7. The table of contents will help you find earlier entries that may be of interest. I'll update this table of contents every week or so for your convenience.

August 31 was the most frequently read blog entry to date. Be sure to check it out!

Thanks so much for your support of this blog. I'm delighted that so many tens of thousands of people have made this blog part of their regular reading habit!

If you like this blog, please let others know who might also enjoy it. E-mailing your favorite post to them is a great idea.

Check out the latest index at http://livebetterthanabillionaireon5dollars.blogspot.com/2005/12/latest-table-of-contents-to-this-blogs.html to pick out your choice.

Thank you to my many friends, students, clients and blog readers who are spreading the good word about this blog.

If you are visiting today because someone invited you, I'm delighted to meet you! Let's stay in touch.

Remember to also visit

Live Spiritually Better than a Billionaire at http://livespirituallybetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/,

Be More Successful than a Billionaire at http://bemoresuccessfulthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/,

Create Your Own 2,000 Percent Solutions at
http://2000percentsolutions.blogspot.com/,

Enjoy Mansions Better than a Billionaire at http://enjoymansionsbetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/,

Enjoy Football Better than a Billionaire at http://enjoyfootballbetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/ and

Be a World Hero Better than a Billionaire at http://beaworldherobetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/.

I offer individual on-line tutorials and in-person seminars on living better than a billionaire on five dollars extra a day, creating 2,000 percent solutions (20 times the results with the same effort), developing more profitable business models and designing strategies that work regardless of the business environment. For information, contact me at ultimatecompetitiveadvantage@yahoo.com.

I am available to you as a speaker on these subjects. You can find my background at http://livebetterthanabillionaireon5dollars.blogspot.com/2005_08_30_livebetterthanabillionaireon5dollars_archive.html/.

May God bless you.

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2005 Donald W. Mitchell