E-mail. If I’m being perfectly honest, I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it’s absolutely wonderful that there’s a direct way for people to reach you. It makes staying in touch with friends and family ridiculously easy. On the other hand, bloody hell, there is a lot of e-mail every single day. I think it’s critically important to keep a handle on it, and it’s something I’ve struggled with in the past.
1) Separation of Church and State
I know people who use their professional e-mail for personal stuff, but I generally try to avoid it. Think about it like this: if you put your Netflix login and other personal accounts under your work e-mail and then one day switch jobs, you have to change everything. Being fully transparent, I did use my old professional e-mail for some personal things a few years back. Then I switched jobs and I was cursing myself the whole time while I moved everything over. Doing the changeover is a massive pain and, frankly, it’s not worth your time. Having a personal e-mail for personal stuff and a professional e-mail for work stuff is simply logical to me. I really dislike getting personal e-mails in my professional inbox. Most of the time I can avoid it, but it still happens once in a while.
2) It’s a matter of exposure
In the cyber security world, there’s something called threat vectors. These are ways that attackers can exploit your system. With e-mail, every extra address is another thing to monitor. The more inboxes you have, the harder it is to keep a handle on what’s coming in. I’ll be honest: there are three areas of my life that get so much e-mail, and are so distinct from each other, that they need their own addresses. I’m willing to take that level of exposure because I have to.
3) A throwaway e-mail is always a good idea
Having a primary e-mail is just a basic method of operating these days. It’s also a good idea to have an address where it does not really matter what happens in it, but it is active all the same. Typically, I use my throwaway e-mail for things like raffles, random sign-ups, or anything I’m not actually interested in having in my main inbox. Because here’s the thing: if you submit your “proper” e-mail to what you think is a legitimate vendor (and it is not), you can accidentally expose yourself to a hacker. So it’s better to have an e-mail address that helps protect you from that kind of exposure.
So… how many e-mails do you need? There are lots of options when it comes to e-mail. That’s actually one of the things I like about it. If you have different sectors of your life, you can separate which e-mail address gets which line of communication. The trick, as always, is staying on top of those addresses so they do not end up overwhelming you, or exposing you to threats. In reality, it should be whatever you’re comfortable managing. If the thought of three e-mail addresses feels overwhelming, go with less. If you think your life needs ten different e-mail addresses… well that’s too much for me, but if it works for you, roll with it. Just make sure you’re able to stay organized in each of those different realms.
How many e-mails do YOU think you need?
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