Man oh man, do people get bent out of shape about spam and the size of their
inbox. It’s simply amazing. I occasionally get questions out at Ask Leo! where people are clearly
extremely upset, apparently tearing their hair out at having to deal with
spam.
I just shake my head.
My advice?
Chill out, relax, get over it, and use the most under-used key on your
keyboard.
Yes, it’s true, if you have no spam filter in place, spam can be absolutely
overwhelming. As I’ve stated before, there’s a lot of spam headed my way. Some 75%
of all the mail headed towards my mail server is spam. If I had to deal with
all of that, I’d probably be tearing my hair out too. But I don’t – I have a
spam filter or two helping to cut down the noise dramatically, and I
occasionally invest a little time tuning them.
But spam filters are easy to find these days, and in fact most people have
one in place already. Most of the people I’m hearing from are stressing out
about the spam that still gets through.
The fact is that spammers are crafty, and no spam solution is perfect. Some
spam still will always get through.
In my opinion, it’s just not worth the angst. It’s not worth getting upset
about. Spam is here, and unless some major changes happen to the fundamental
infrastructure of email, it will be here for a very, very long time. Just like
junk mail in your postal mailbox, there will always be spam.
And what do you do with that junk mail from your postal mail box? You throw
it away.
So do the same with the spam that makes it through to your inbox.
That under-utilized key on your keyboard? Delete. Apply
liberally.
When you see spam – delete it.
One of the common complaints is that all that “stuff” gets in people’s way.
It interferes with their “real” work, and dealing with their “important” email.
It adds stress.
It doesn’t take long to recognize spam and hit the delete key. I do it
hundreds of times a day. And if you’ve already set up some basic rules, you can even reduce the effort,
or prioritize the important stuff ahead of dealing with spam.
But the basic rule is very simple.
If it’s spam, delete it and move on.
Don’t stress out about it; it’s just not worth it. Life’s too short.