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stockfox742 · 3 years ago

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What Is My Amazon Ip Address

When my team or a third party uploads files to my Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket, I want to know the external IP address that they used. My bucket policy might allow access only for specific IP addresses. How can I find the external IP address used with each upload?

What Is My Amazon Aws Ip Address

What Is My Amazon Ip Address

What Is My Amazon Fire Ip Address

Amazon Prime Ip Address

Short description

To find the IP addresses for object-level requests to Amazon S3 (uploads and downloads), you must first enable one of the following logging methods:

So, let’s now check out a small procedure wherein you can easily find the Mac address in your Amazon’s Kindle FIRE. Procedure to Find Amazon Kindle Fire’s Mac Address: From your Amazon Kindle Fire, head to the home screen and on the top right corner you will see an icon which is of “Settings”, tap on the same. If you want to add your Kindle Fire to your router's whitelist to ensure you can connect to your network, you'll need to know the device's MAC address. While your IP address changes from network to network, your MAC address is unique to the device.

Amazon S3 server access logging captures all bucket-level and object-level events. These logs use a format similar to Apache web server logs.

AWS CloudTrail data events capture the last 90 days of bucket-level events (for example, PutBucketPolicy and DeleteBucketPolicy), and you can enable object-level logging. These logs use a JSON format.

Resolution

Important: It's a best practice to create a new bucket specifically for logs that's separate from the bucket that you want to monitor. A separate bucket for logs avoids the risk of getting logs about logs.

Enable Amazon S3 server access logging

What Is My Amazon Aws Ip Address

To enable Amazon S3 server access logging, see How do I enable server access logging for an S3 bucket?

Note: It might take a few hours for Amazon S3 to start creating logs.

After you enable server access logging, review the logs to find the IP addresses used with each upload to your bucket. For example, in the following log for a PutObject request, the IP address is shown after the timestamp (07/Dec/2018:07:03:01 +0000):

Enable object-level logging with AWS CloudTrail data events

To enable AWS CloudTrail data events, see How do I enable object-level logging for an S3 bucket with AWS CloudTrail data events?

Note: It might take a few hours for AWS CloudTrail to start creating logs.

After you enable object-level logging with data events, review the logs to find the IP addresses used with each upload to your bucket. For example, in the following log for a PutObject request, the IP address is listed as the 'sourceIPAddress':

Related information

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Posted On: Jan 6, 2020

Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) now includes a feature called Bring Your Own IP (BYOIP), which makes it possible to use Amazon SES to send email through publicly-routable IP addresses that you already own.

What Is My Amazon Ip Address

Mailbox providers—such as Gmail and Hotmail—use several variables to determine whether to place your email in the inbox or the spam folder. An important factor in determining where to place an email is IP address that the email was sent from. If an IP address range has cultivated a positive reputation over the years, changing to a new range means rebuilding that reputation. Additionally, some senders ask their partners and customers to whitelist their IP ranges to ensure that their messages are always delivered. Customers who have these specific requirements can now use Amazon SES to power their email-sending systems.

What Is My Amazon Fire Ip Address

Amazon SES is a cloud-based email sending service designed to help digital marketers and application developers send marketing, notification, and transactional emails. You can use our SMTP interface or one of the AWS SDKs to integrate Amazon SES directly into your own systems and applications.

Amazon Prime Ip Address

This feature is available in the following AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia-Pacific (Mumbai), Asia-Pacific (Sydney), Europe (Frankfurt), and Europe (Dublin). To learn more about BYOIP, see Using Your Own IP Addresses in the Amazon SES Developer Guide.

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foldthebike · 4 years ago

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11 Lessons I Learned From Building 100 Whitehat Backlinks In 28 Days

'Hey, I came across your article (link) and I noticed you linked to one of my favourite guides (link to competitor). I actually created something similar but it's much better because of X, check it out here (link to your article). It might be a great resource to link to. If you decide to go ahead, I'll do (insert benefit here) as a way of saying thanks.'

Backlinks are still one of the most important ranking factors for SEO...

But how do you get the damn things?

Over the last few months I’ve been focusing on building backlinks for my own websites (and my clients), and the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that if you don’t have the right system in place, then this can be a serious grind…

That’s why I’ve focused on the skyscraper technique.

If you’ve never heard of it, this is basically where you find competing articles with a lot of links, create a better piece of content and reach out to those linking websites asking if they could share it.

...And the last 28 days have been awesome!

I’ve built over 100+ high DR, whitehat links reaching out for just a few articles. Plus it only took an hour a day to manage the campaign (I’ll explain how later).

But it’s not been an easy ride - my results have come from months of testing, tweaking and a LOT of trial and error.

I’ve now compiled a list of 11 lessons I’ve learned from the whole process because I’ve seen a whole lot of people asking how to get more backlinks for their own websites.

(Hopefully it’ll help you get a few links yourself.)

So let’s get into it…

1. Outreach like a human.

If you’re reaching out to webmasters, don’t hit them with the hard sell explaining why your website is so great compared to everyone else’s - and why you need a link.

Just be conversational, offer value and don’t be aggressive in your approach.

^ Do this and you’ll set yourself apart from 90% of the outreach emails most webmasters get.

2. Focus on content.

With any skyscraper campaign, your content needs to be waaay better than your competitors.

Here’s a few tips:

Remove all ads, affiliate links and pop-ups

Always spell check and grammar check. It doesn’t have to be perfect but this helps.

Add plenty of charts and custom graphics to increase its readability

Format it nicely - keep your paragraphs at 3-4 lines maximum, keep your sentences short and make sure there’s no fluff just to fill out your word count

Skyscraper articles should be EPIC! 3000-5000+ words is the standard to set if you want a lot of links

3. Pick your battles.

Always research your competition before you setup a skyscraper campaign.

Let’s say you’re writing about health:

If you’re a relatively unheard of website, you’re going to struggle against authoritative industry experts like WebMD.

Yes, it can done - but this approach will make your life much harder.

So try to compete against websites and articles you know you can beat.

4. Manage your inbox productively.

If you’re sending out 100+ outreach emails per day, your inbox is going to stack up quick!

And you can easily spend a whole morning managing it.

Instead, here’s what I recommend you do:

Just check your inbox once per day

Remove email notifications off your phone

And keep a bank of canned responses so you can reply quickly (you can set this up in your Gmail settings)

5. Scale up.

If you want a lot of links, you need to outreach at scale.

And that’s the beauty of skyscraper:

On most of my link building campaigns, I’ll contact 1,000+ prospects about the content. And a decent percentage of these will convert into links.

Tools like Hunter, Lemlist and Mailshake are incredibly useful for this.

6. Be persistent.

First of all, you should never spam anyone. Only offer value in your emails...

However, you do need to be persistent. I’d recommend setting up an automated sequence to follow up with webmasters 1-2 times after the initial outreach email.

And if someone doesn’t get back to you, don’t take it personally.

Sometimes, webmasters will reply to me 2-3 weeks later with a link. So it’s important to follow up so you’re not forgotten.

7. Offer an incentive.

You’ve got to think about what’s in it for the webmaster - and why would they bother spending the time to add a link to your website?

The stronger your incentive, the more links you’ll get back.

For example, you could offer a social media share to say thanks for the link.

8. Avoid outreach templates.

If you Google email outreach templates, you won’t be stuck for choice.

But the problem is, most of these templates have been rinsed and everyone’s using them. In fact, you’ll struggle to avoid the spam inbox with these sorts of templates.

Instead, focus on writing an email outreach campaign that’s unique and original.

9. Boost your deliverability.

When you’re doing cold email outreach for link building, you need to be really careful about spam filters.

Spam filters are designed to pick up certain keywords.

So avoid using terms like free, bro, offer or any other keyword that could hurt your email deliverability.

Plus if you keep hitting the spam folder, the domain you send your emails from will get burned. I’d also stick to plain text emails and avoid sending images.

10. Outsource.

Outsource basic tasks such as finding emails, writing the content etc. That’s easy to do with platforms like UpWork.

This will save you a ton of time and let you focus on the actual outreach campaigns instead.

It’s the easiest way to quickly scale up your campaigns.

11. Link quality.

Don’t reach out to spammy websites just because you could get an easy link.

You want to focus on high-quality, whitehat websites that offer genuine value as a backlink.

So when you’re prospecting for outreach contacts, check through your list, look at their website and make sure you’re not reaching out to anyone that looks remotely blackhat.

That’s it from me…

Hope you found it useful :)

If you need any tips or you’re stuck on your own link building campaigns, just let me know and I’ll be happy to help out.

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dorothydelgadillo · 7 years ago

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5 Networking Tips for Introverts Moving to a New Industry

Ten months ago, I started a new job in a new industry — a job that required me to build relationships with people I’d never met, people who possibly knew about my company, but probably didn’t. It was the perfect role for an extroverted networking aficionado like me.

Except I’m an introvert—not one of those extroverts. And I say things like, “You too!” when the concession stand cashier tells me to enjoy my movie. Networking is totally out of my comfort zone.

But this was a fantastic opportunity to get back into an industry I loved and work with a flexible, growing company I admired. I pulled up my go-get-em pants and got to work. But when I’m launching myself into a new industry, how do I actually build my network without creeping people out?

Five Contacts A Day

My introverted tendencies raised their quiet and unassuming heads within weeks of starting. Wouldn’t it be easier if I just sent them pleasant thoughts and used ESP to get these incredibly busy and important people to contact me for a get-to-know-you conversation?

After coming to terms with the fact that the Force is, unfortunately, not with me, I made a list of about two dozen people in my industry who I would love to build a relationship with. This included people I could help directly as well as people who were leading the conversation that made me love this industry. I found these people by following industry big-names and seeing who they mention, as well as asking co-workers who they thought were asking the good questions in the industry. Then I made a goal of contacting five of these people each day.

Each point of contact I made needed to be purpose-driven and genuine. It needed to be about them, such as helping them, giving their words a boost through my social media network, thanking them for doing amazing work or introducing them to an idea or person they would like.

I made a list of things that counted as a contact. I could email them. Connect with them on LinkedIn. Tweet out something they wrote (and tag them). Suggest an article for them to read. Send them a hand-written note. Get on a call with them or even meet with them in person. I wanted to try anything to get my name in front of them, while still being genuine, helpful, and starting a real conversation.

I told my boss about this goal. I told my team about this goal. I added a spot for these five contacts on my to-do list, so my day cannot be complete without this final checkmark. I also tracked these contacts in Excel (and later HubSpot) so I could make sure I didn’t contact the same people over and over.

Even with a solid plan and the line-item on my to-do list, I still struggled to overpower my introverted tendencies and fear of bothering people. Here are a few hacks and mantras I’ve used to keep me actually reaching out to five people each day.

1. Your calendar is your accountability buddy.

A few years ago, I realized I was becoming a bit of a hermit, so I put reminders on my calendar to check in with friends, mentors, and other connections for lunch dates and happy hours. Then I read Molly Beck’s REACH OUT, and saw that she applied this tactic to her connecting strategy.

In her book, Molly suggests scheduling time each morning to knock out the REACH OUT you plan to do that day. My contacts were often more serendipitous and directly related to projects I worked on throughout the day. But an “Oh, Crap” reminder about 3:30pm was a good way to see how many of my five I’d completed and how much Twitter stalking needed to happen before the end of the day.

2. Email as you would want to be emailed.

If you have ever filled out an online form, you’ve probably ended up in Dante’s fifth circle of bad email marketing hell. I knew I didn’t want to be that person. Landing in someone’s spam folder was not part of the plan.

In every email I sent, I tried to provide something that would help or entertain the person on the receiving side (Molly calls them “gifts” with every email). It was also important to keep the email short. If I had to explain something, I left that for a follow-up email or I linked to something that could explain it for me.

3. Embrace the social media stalking.

Twitter and LinkedIn have been my best friends during this transition. I can get a little background on the person I want to contact without creepy deep-Google searches, and possibly even interact with them organically through the social media platforms.

And don’t fear the “Who’s Viewed My Profile” notification when you check out someone else’s profile. If the other person actually logs into their LinkedIn account regularly enough to see it, it proves that you are doing your homework and not just spamming a mailing list.

4. Mix it up.

Email is easy to ignore. Every few months when I find the bottom of my inbox, I remember that request I was going to get back to or the interesting thread I was going to chime in on. To help stay out of the inbox oubliette, I found success by using another platform, such as Twitter or LinkedIn, to respond to or share an article by the person a few days before I sent an email. This way, the person already knows you are aware of their work and your name sounds familiar when they see it in their inbox.

5. When in doubt, use an email delay.

It’s amazing how much anxiety a little blue button can cause. It seemed as though I only noticed the obvious typo (or the completely blank subject line) after I hit send. To calm that mild panic prior to each email send, I started using the Send Later function in a Gmail extension called MixMax. By giving myself a 30-minute window to review the email, I can return to it, check for typos (again, for the third time) and make the emailing process a little less stressful.

My five-contacts-a-day is a work in progress. While I’ve made some great connections by forcing myself to interact with other people in my industry, I’ve definitely gotten my fair share of crickets and the occasional “I don’t know you, go away.” But the goal is to build relationships and be genuine, and the good outcomes far outweigh the grouchy ones. I’m not an extroverted networking aficionado yet, but sometimes I look like one on Twitter.

—

This post originally appeared on Ellevate Network.

Carrie Watkins is the Editorial Relations Director at Influence & Co. A writer by education, a marketer by experience, and a trainer by learning from some extremely talented people, she finds being at the intersection of business and technology truly thought-provoking, and is inspired by learning from the information providers and creators transforming their industries.

from Web Developers World https://skillcrush.com/2018/05/09/networking-tips-for-extroverts-in-a-new-industry/

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elevatorupcompany · 7 years ago

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Using Streak to simplify your life

The life of a community manager is extremely fast paced. If you’re not careful, it can be easy to become extremely disorganized. It can also be difficult to keep track of important things like who’s coming in to learn more about who we are and what we do. As a community manager, it’s important to me to make sure I’m connecting well with people. This means I need to be intentional about learning and remembering information about people for future conversations.

I’m really proud to say one of the best changes I’ve made so far in 2017 is to keep a solid log of all the people who come through The Factory for the first time. I am so happy people come through our doors each day because that means they’re curious about what we do here. There’s a lot of valuable information that’s exchanged the first time someone emails us, the first time someone talks with us, and I really wanted a seamless way to keep everything in one spot.

Whenever I begin something new, I try to ask myself about the problem I’m trying to solve. Previously, I was using a Google sheet to keep track of leads. This worked really well when I wasn’t busy, but then when those spurts would hit, I’d forget to update it. I’d forget to look at it, and I’d fall really behind on my follow up messages. Before I used the Google sheet, I’d use a simple email folder to file away these requests. Most of the times, these messages would never resurface, and an opportunity to connect with someone was lost. In both of these scenarios, I was feeling inhibited by the friction to look back at something or review it. I’d catch myself looking at the sheet and then reading through emails. I needed something that’d log everything in one spot.

Now, I use a program called Streak, a Gmail plugin. Among other features, like delay send and email viewing notifications, Streak installs something called boxes. Boxes groups emails exchanged between you and another person. Once the box is opened, this is what you’ll find. An email log, and a few other pieces you can use to see information at a glance.

Besides having our entire email exchange in one spot, I use the note section to jot down important things like why they want to work here, what level of membership people are interested in learning more about, what month they are looking to start, what kinds of questions they had during the tour, and how I can connect them to people, groups, and what things are out there that might benefit them. This helps me reference these points quickly when we have a conversation in the future.

Next, we can zoom out from individual boxes to look at our sales funnel. Overall, the funnel provides an easy at a glance look of how many people you have in different stages at any given time. You can also see when the last contact was had and determine if it’s time to follow up. This helps me out because I can look at this on a daily or weekly basis to see where people are in the process. Each stage in the funnel is totally customizable and can be named however you’d like. From there, you can move the boxes through the funnel.

Overall, I’m a really big fan of Streak because it helps me stay organized. I no longer have to fumble through emails to figure out what kind of membership someone was interested in or what kind of work they do. I also don’t have to rely on my memory to remember where people are in the process. It’s been super helpful to see when my last communication with someone was to make sure I’m not checking in too much or too little. For me, most importantly, I no longer need to log information in multiple spots. Streak helps me eliminate worry and stress.

From using Streak and learning how it works, I have a few ideas for my next funnel. I’ve also been thinking through how I can automate reminder emails or create a second funnel for when check in emails should go out to members throughout their first year of membership. If you have a program you’re using to keep track of your emails or to move potential clients through a sales funnel, I’d love to hear what you’re using and how you’re using it. I’m really excited to learn more about this.

- Amelie, community manager

#amelie #community #communitymanager #organization #streak #gmail #plugin #funnel #sales #tours #coworking

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realitycrazy2017-blog · 7 years ago

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Top 4 Small Business Mobile Apps

New Post has been published on https://realitycrazy.com/top-4-small-business-mobile-apps/

Top 4 Small Business Mobile Apps

As we discussed in a post not long ago, more than 50% of America are now smartphone owners. This growing trend of on-the-go consumers makes it incredibly important for small businesses to continue to reach them. Not only is marketing towards these mobile customers critical, but so is making sure you can operate your own business on the go.

As this trend continues to grow, and mobile phones play a larger role in our lives, so to will their integration with business. If you don’t have a smartphone, now just might be the time. Personally, I waited quite a while before getting one, and now I both don’t know what I was thinking or how I can ever go back.

If you are a small business and smartphone owner, there are likely apps you use regularly to keep things going on the move. Mail, web browser, etc. are all pretty standard, but here are a few you might be missing out on. I have used each extensively and without going overboard on how many to review, I found these to be essential.

These 4 applications make organizing your thoughts, finances, and marketing easier to deal with away from the computer or office.

1. Evernote (Free, iPhone / iPad / Android / Mac / PC)

Developed by Apple for integration with their operating systems, it has since come to Windows computers. Evernote is the quintessential note taking and storing app. It allows you to keep every thought you have written down and saved properly.

You can create different folders so your business and personal notes are kept separate, as well as tags for easy identification. Newly added, the app now features reminders that can be added onto each note you take so you never forget to do exactly what you wrote down.

In fact, I’m writing this article with Evernote as we speak. It essentially saved my from getting the Microsoft Office Suite, or just Word on its own. I think I like it better as a writing tool since it just feels so much more casual, which is my approach to writing. Word reminds me of writing a paper for finals in college.

Formatting text is a breeze like you can in other text editors. Sharing to social networks is also directly integrated. So if you put together something you’d like to share on your Twitter or Facebook page, you can do it directly from the app.

The computer version of the app also allows for seamless, easy synching of all your notes. This way anything you wrote on your phone will be updated on your computer, and vice versa. Now you’ll never skip a beat or need to copy already written notes over.

The bottom line is it makes things easier. Something any small business owner could use. Many people use Post-It notes to control the constant stream of thoughts they have every day when it comes to managing a business. Evernote makes it convenient for you to store those in an organized fashion for the long haul.

2. Wunderlist ($Free, iPhone / iPad / Android / Mac / PC / Web)

This app is about as handy and no frills as a to-do list app should be. I will be the first to say that an app which keeps track of things you need to do seems a bit frivolous. But after going some time without it and trying to use other apps like Evernote to do the trick, I find this much better.

All Wunderlist enables you to do is create a running to-do list of all your tasks. And it works quite perfectly for just this. You can make certain tasks a priority and keep them atop the list. Likewise, you can set reminders or due dates, so you won’t forget. The app will send you a push notification ensuring you really remember to do that thing you wrote down last week so you wouldn’t forget for the third consecutive week straight.

I find that pretty handy with so much going on between life and business.

Naturally, you can add longer descriptions to tasks and include details if need be. You can even share lists directly or over email with others who might need some guidance. For example, making a to-do list for an intern or employee might be helpful if you’re away or forgot your computer.

It helps keep me on track and organized, which is something I try to not take for granted. To mark tasks as done, just check their corresponding box and off they go. It’s kind of gratifying like crossing off something on paper you needed to do.

Once again, this app has the synching ability from smartphone to computer, so you’re always updated across the board. The great part I find is that it is designed to help you on-the-go, and it does that perfectly.

3. Mint (Free, iPhone / iPad / Android / Web)

Finances in a quandary? No ideas where your spending is going? Can’t understand your bank’s outdated web dashboard? Then Mint is for you.

Mint is a simple and secure application that connects directly to your bank account to monitor its activity. It produces these nifty, straightforward charts and graphs at the end or each month, or whenever you want, so you can visualize your business’ spending.

It really makes things crystal clear when it comes to tracking revenue and expenses. Sure your bank probably has a way of giving you reports and showing what’s coming and going, but nothing like this I can assure you.

Mint is widely trusted among people and businesses to track their money, so it’s incredibly secure. You can even setup a pass lock before gaining access to the app. Just sign up, link your account with it, and Mint will start tracking the numbers.

With a much clearer view of how your money os being spent, you can fine tune your budget and allocations to work better for your business. Expenses can be grouped into categories and allotted a monthly limit. Going over this will prompt an alert so you can keep a close eye one exactly what is happening with your money.

The app’s sleek design combined with insightful metrics make it a win-win for small business owners.

4. Facebook

A little more than six months ago and this app would not have been included in this list. It took the developers at Facebook far too long to get an app right. Not only was it’s designed clunky for years, but it didn’t encourage users to keep using Facebook on their phones.

I doubt they truly realized the importance of this fact until it was completely updated and turned into the app we have today. Right around the time of this redesign, they saw a big boost in mobile users. Today a huge portion of their traffic come from people using the app, and it’s pretty clear why.

Anyways, you should be using the app for your business’ own page. Just how simple it is to post to your personal account from your phone, they have made it easy as ever to do for your own page.

Simply log in and add a post, picture, or video, and share away. The mobile friendly nature of the app now encourages business owners to keep their audience in the loop no matter where they are.

Events, news, or spontaneous updates now have no trouble being shared immediately with your following from the app. No longer is it actually easier to wait until you are at a computer to tell the word. Now there should be no hesitation or delay if you want to get something posted.

You can view your page either as an Admin or as the public, so you know exactly how your page looks, and what you can do to update it. There are a bunch of other helpful features added in that makes the experience much easier and seamless to use now.

Plain and simple, if you a manager or contribute to a Facebook page for your small business, get the app.

5. Bonus – Gmail (iPhone / iPad / Android / Web)

This one is added as an extra since not everyone uses Google’s email platform for their business. Personally, I have 3 Gmail accounts and keep tabs on them all on my smartphone so this app is essential.

Even if you just use Gmail for personal email, I would recommend trying this app out. They redesigned it completely not long ago and it really excels. The design and layout are nearly flawless now in my opinion. Plus multiple account integration is a breeze.

If you didn’t know, for only $5 per month, you can use Gmail as your mail provider with a specific domain address. Your email can still remain

[email protected], but instead of using the regular client, you can use Gmail.Not worth it to everyone, but for lovers of Gmail on mobile and the web, it’s definitely an option worth considering.

So there you go, those are our 4 (or 5) best smartphone apps for helping your run your small business. Nothing fancy or intricate about any of them, just good solid apps to make your day to day business tasks easier. Got suggestions for additional ones? Let us know!

To learn more and get a copy of our Free Small Business Marketing eBook,

Kevin Gaertner is Co-Owner of Cyclone Strategies, a marketing agency which helps small and medium-sized businesses create and implement online marketing strategies.

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myupdatesystems-blog · 8 years ago

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Small Business Mobile Apps

New Post has been published on https://myupdatesystems.com/small-business-mobile-apps/

Small Business Mobile Apps

These 4 applications make organizing your thoughts, finances, and marketing easier to deal with away from the computer or office.

1. Evernote (Free, iPhone / iPad / Android / Mac / PC)

2. Wunderlist ($Free, iPhone / iPad / Android / Mac / PC / Web)

I find that pretty handy with so much going on between life and business.

3. Mint (Free, iPhone / iPad / Android / Web)

Finances in a quandary? No ideas where your spending is going? Can’t understand your bank’s outdated web dashboard? Then Mint is for you.

The app’s sleek design combined with insightful metrics make it a win-win for small business owners.

4. Facebook

Anyways, you should be using the app for your business’ own page. Just how simple it is to post to your personal account from your phone, they have made it easy as ever to do for your own page.

Simply log in and add a post, picture, or video, and share away. The mobile friendly nature of the app now encourages business owners to keep their audience in the loop no matter where they are.

Plain and simple, if you a manage or contribute to a Facebook page for your small business, get the app.

5. Bonus – Gmail (iPhone / iPad / Android / Web)

If you didn’t know, for only $5 per month, you can use Gmail as your mail provider with a specific domain address. Your email can still remain

[email protected], but instead of using the regular client, you can use Gmail.

Not worth it to everyone, but for lovers of Gmail on mobile and the web, it’s definitely an option worth considering.

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mnefaulkerson · 8 years ago

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7 Tips to be an Email Master

(Image: Courtney Recker)

We live in an information saturated world today where our inboxes are fuller than ever and we receive more emails than before. Digital communication has become the primary way we communicate with anyone, if at all.

With over half the world now using email, it’s unlikely that email will stop being a cornerstone of our lives or work culture for a while.

Yet email is just a tool to get things done, not a measure of our productivity. In this post, I share 7 tips to manage your email effectively.

1. Limit email processing to 2-3 times a day

Two important rules to remember when it comes to email:

The time you spend outside of email is when you get things done.

The time you spend at your inbox is when you’re reacting to requests and facilitating stuff in general.

The exception is if email is a direct measurement of your work output (like customer support), or you’re in a management position where you delegate your tasks/work via email.

(b) is important to the extent that it helps you in (a). The problem starts when you spend countless hours in your inbox thinking that you’re getting things done. You should, as a general rule:

Not have email alerts turned on. They turn you into a reactional monkey as you get diverted by popups telling you that you got mail. You don’t need to know when people send you mail. Turn them off.

Not spend more than 5 minutes on email in the morning. Morning is when you have your best energy. Do a quick check if needed, but don’t spend your best morning hours on email as it’ll set the tone for your entire day (and turn it into an email-checking day). Start your mornings with your high impact tasks instead.

Process your email 2-3X a day. Process meaning to actually sort your emails, read them in depth, and reply. Check emails multiple times a day if your work requires you to be in the close loop of on-the-ground issues, but only process them 2-3X a day. The exception is if an email is urgent and important — reply right away, then get back to your high-impact tasks. I process my mail once a day, sometimes once every 2-3 days, as email is not where I get my most important work done. Your Quadrant 2, high-impact tasks should always be your priority.

2. Prioritize important email (which may not be new)

Not all emails are important. Some are irrelevant. But people tend to recognize what’s new (hence prioritizing and reading new mail first, even replying to them quickly even though there are more important tasks to be done), not what’s important.

Before you jump into your emails, consider their importance. In general, our work mail can be segmented into 3 categories:

Category A: Your most important emails that will make a big difference in your Q2 goals. This typically makes up 10-20% of your mail.

Category B: Important but not as important as A. These emails keep things going but will not dramatically change your goals/life. They form the bulk of your mail. This makes up 40-60% of your mail.

Category C: Unimportant mail. Nice-to-know information, spam, time-wasters. Depending on your work, this makes up 20-30% of your mail.

A similar categorization applies for personal mail. An email from a close friend can be an A mail. An email from someone who has helped you before can be an A mail too. An email from someone who can benefit from your help can also be an A or B mail. It depends on the context.

You want to give extra weight to the A emails, treat B emails as per normal, while ignoring C emails.

10% of my emails fall under A, 60% in B, and 30% in C. I reply to A quickly. With B emails, I reply over time, based on a mental weightage of the time it’d take, urgency, and the time I have to reply. C emails are trashed or archived.

Use different treatment methods for your emails based on importance. If you can do just this, your productivity will skyrocket.

3. Use folders, filters to sort your email

Back in my previous company, I had colleagues who didn’t organize their mail at all — they would just reply and archive their mail into one big folder. While it made it getting to emails quick at first, they would spend a lot of time clicking, searching, and re-searching for mail later on. They couldn’t see emails filed by their categories either but had to search for individual mail piece by piece. This problem gets worse over time as the amount of mail you have increases.

Take the time to set up a helpful folder structure and good filters:

a) Folders (or Labels in Gmail). Create a few folders for the big categories, then tier them down with sub-categories. This way you can easily click into a folder/sub-folder to see all the mail on that subject. More on using folders/labels: Gmail | Outlook

b) Email Filters (or Rules in Outlook). An email filter is a logic you set in your email client that automatically sorts new mail as it enters your inbox. Every filter has two parts: (1) the criteria to watch out for in an email, and (2) what your email client should do if the criteria is met. For example:

If an email is sent from *@paypal.com → Move to Payments folder + Archive (so you don’t even see it in your inbox)

If an email is sent from [email protected] → Move to Family folder

If an email has the words “Team Update” in the Subject → Move to Updates folder + Star (to differentiate form others)

If an email is from a blacklisted address (who keeps sending spam) → Delete (you can also block the person’s address in Gmail)

I have over 40 email filters and they sort my mail automatically, allowing me to get right to reading/replying when I log into my inbox. Whenever I receive emails that match a new pattern (such as when I subscribe to a new service), I’ll create a new filter to file them into the appropriate folder.

What I save here isn’t just the time, but the mental energy from having to think and sort through countless trickles of mail, which I then use for my big tasks.

Analyze your emails — what emails do you tend to get? Set up filters for them. Here’s my video tutorial on how I set up my email filters. Here’s an Outlook tutorial for setting rules.

4. Create templates for common emails

If you have mail that you send over and over, such as instructions to clients or customer replies, create templates to reuse them. Gmail has a Canned Responses feature for this purpose though I don’t find it intuitive — I just save my template responses in Perfect Keyboard (a text substitution tool) and activate each template by typing a hotkey. I have a video tutorial on how to use text substitution tools here.

5. Use a scheduler (Boomerang)

(Image: Product Hunt)

Sometimes I’m quick in replying to emails, but I don’t want a ping-pong effect where I reply to an email, the person replies right away after 10 minutes (and expects a reply), and the email conversation derails into a chat — when all I want to do is get out of my inbox and work on my Q2 tasks.

Boomerang solves this problem. It’s an email scheduler where you control when you send (and receive) mail. If I’ve typed up a message but only want it sent two days later, Boomerang takes care of it. If an email is important but I can’t reply right away and I don’t want it to get buried in my inbox, I set it to return to my inbox and appear at the top a week later. If I want to be reminded when someone doesn’t reply to my message after X days, Boomerang can do that. You can also send recurring mail with Boomerang, though I don’t use this function.

Boomerang is a little buggy though — there are times when I schedule mail to be sent later but it sends it immediately instead. This happens about 5% of the time. Despite this, it’s extremely handy and has transformed the way I use email. Boomerang is available for Gmail and Outlook. Here is their tutorial page.

There are similar tools like Right Inbox (for Gmail), MailButler (for Applemail), and Send Later (for Outlook), though I haven’t used them before. All are free for up to a certain number of messages per month.

6. Reduce clutter by preventing it from entering your inbox

The best way to reduce email clutter is to prevent it from getting into your inbox. To do this,

Unsubscribe from stuff you don’t need. For blogs that you love, keep the email subscription. For blogs that send mail excessively and you don’t really follow anymore, unsubscribe.

Turn off unwanted notifications. Companies today send us countless notifications to divert our attention back to their services. But we don’t need them. You should use a service only when you want to use it, not when it notifies you every hour of the day. Regain your attention and turn them off.

Delete unwanted mail with filters. There’ll always be services that don’t let you unsubscribe or companies that abuse their access to your information and don’t let you opt out. Create a filter to automatically delete such mail.

Send less email. This is a very elusive yet simple rule: if you want to get less mail, send less mail. If you can call and ask the person directly, at no opportunity cost, do that. If you need to acknowledge receipt, just reply with a very short message like “Got it” or “Okay, thanks! :)” If you have nothing good to add and you’re not required to respond, don’t reply.

No reply can be a form of reply. Because I get a lot of unsolicited mail via my blog, I’ve learned the importance of giving my attention only to the things I care about. When you reply to something like a negative message or an unsolicited pitch, even if your reply is a “no” and doesn’t require a followup, there’ll always be a percentage of people who reply (a) with more noise/negativity or (b) try to push their luck and insist on more information, more time, more answers, to break into your mental space and get you to buy into their agenda. Protect your mental space by only letting in things you care about in the first place, and of course block addresses that send you unwanted negativity/spam.

7. Keep it short

Brevity is underrated in our attention-starved economy. As Facebook tries whatever it can to grab our monkey mind for another 5 minutes to maximize shareholder value, we can take control of our time and attention by learning to be brief and precise.

In your work mail, be as precise as you can. Keep it short while covering what’s needed, then move on. When your emails are brief, (a) you help others focus on getting things done, (b) you reduce lengthy replies back to you, and (c) people can put their attention where it matters most.

Remember that email is a tool to help you communicate and get things done, not the work itself. Which tips can you apply to be an email master? If you’ve found this article useful, do pass it along to a friend or family — you may well save hours of their time on email each week.

Related article: 6 Tips to Deal with Digital Burnout in Today’s World

Get the manifesto: [Manifesto] 10 Tips To Effective Email Management

Related Podcasts:

The 8 Habits of Highly Productive People

6 Tips to Deal with Digital Burnout in Today’s World

50 Ways To Boost Your Productivity

How to Say No To Others: Your Ultimate Guide

The post 7 Tips to be an Email Master is first published on Personal Excellence.

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baburaja97-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/top-4-small-business-mobile-apps/

Top 4 Small Business Mobile Apps

These 4 applications make organizing your thoughts, finances, and marketing easier to deal with away from the computer or office.

1. Evernote (Free, iPhone / iPad / Android / Mac / PC)

2. Wunderlist ($Free, iPhone / iPad / Android / Mac / PC / Web)

I find that pretty handy with so much going on between life and business.

3. Mint (Free, iPhone / iPad / Android / Web)

Finances in a quandary? No ideas where your spending is going? Can’t understand your bank’s outdated web dashboard? Then Mint is for you.

The app’s sleek design combined with insightful metrics make it a win-win for small business owners.

4. Facebook

Anyways, you should be using the app for your business’ own page. Just how simple it is to post to your personal account from your phone, they have made it easy as ever to do for your own page.

Simply log in and add a post, picture, or video, and share away. The mobile friendly nature of the app now encourages business owners to keep their audience in the loop no matter where they are.

Plain and simple, if you a manage or contribute to a Facebook page for your small business, get the app.

5. Bonus – Gmail (iPhone / iPad / Android / Web)

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ultralifehackerguru-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/iphone-email-showdown-spark-vs-airmail/

iPhone Email Showdown: Spark vs. Airmail

The iPhone email app game has changed a lot over the years, with the only constant being that no app seems to remain consistently at the top. Right now, two of the most popular options are Airmail and Spark. Let’s take a look at what sets them apart.

The Contenders

It’s impossible to sift through the countless email apps in the App Store. Worse, it seems like any time an app does well, like Mailbox, Sparrow, or Acompli, that app gets purchased by some corporation and then folded into some other service (or killed off completely). For now, two of our favorites, Airmail and Spark seem safe. So let’s take a look at them:

Airmail ($4.99): Airmail was available on Mac first, and happens to be our favorite Mac email client. That desktop pedigree shows in the iPhone app too, as Airmail’s appeal comes from the sheer amount of customization options available in it. Alongside all the normal email features, like support for multiple accounts using standards like Gmail, Exchange, IMAP, or POP3, Airmail also has dozens of advanced features. This includes options like location-based notifications, customizable swipes, and more.

Spark (Free): Spark launched on iPhone first, but the Mac app followed quickly thereafter. The mobile-first attitude carries through in the design, as Spark is much simpler and easier to use than Airmail. Spark feels very much like a spiritual successor to Sparrow, so if you loved that app at any point, Spark may be up your alley. As you’d expect, Spark supports Gmail, Exchange, and IMAP email accounts as well as options for a unified inbox.

While both Spark and Airmail are fine email apps, they both have different strengths, so lets dial in exactly which app is best suited for you.

Spark Is Great for Automated Email Sorting and Smart Notifications

Spark’s main pitch is its “intelligence.” It has a “smart” inbox, “smart” search, and “smart” notifications. What this means in reality is automation, but regardless of what you call it, it works well for anyone who doesn’t want to fiddle around and sort their email manually.

The smart inbox is the most important thing Spark does. Spark detects if an email is personal, a newsletter, or a notification style of email, then groups those emails together into batches. It then uses that same system to send you notifications for only important emails, which are usually the ones classified as personal. Of course, you can always set up notifications for every email, but Spark’s appeal is that you don’t have to do that. In my experience, this has always been pretty smart. I always get notifications for any email that’s a reply to something I’ve sent, and then I get a handful of notifications from specific senders, like anyone here at Lifehacker or my parents. It’s not perfect, but I generally don’t miss anything too important.

The search in Spark is also billed as smarter, which in this case means you can use natural language to search, like “attachments from Andy from last week.” It’s helpful if you search through your email a lot.

Airmail has some of these features as well, but they’re not as much of a focus. Airmail doesn’t have any special inbox sorting options, but it does support smart folders and plenty of other manual sorting options.

Airmail also has a smart notification feature, though it doesn’t seem as robust or intelligent as Spark’s system. Instead, Airmail’s main notification-related strength is its support for VIPs, with which you only get notifications for emails from specific senders. Search is very much about manual control instead of natural language, where you can sort your searches with filters to find what you’re looking for.

In short, Spark is about automation, while Airmail focuses on manual control. If email is a service you use and is not some deep connection to important aspects of your life, Spark’s automated controls simplify your email without too many quirks. If your email is extremely important, Airmail gives you the manual controls you need to get the right information when you need it.

Airmail Is the Choice for Anyone Who Likes to Customize

If you like to customize your email experience, you want Airmail. Airmail has an absurd amount of customization options, from specific swipe actions for your inbox to location-specific notifications.

The amount of customization options in Airmail is hard to run through here, but rest assured, you can bend this app to your will. Personally, my favorite little change you can make is the message preview size. You can alter the number of lines shown for an email on the inbox screen, making it much easier to triage emails without ever opening them. Everything else you expect to be here is here, like labels, filters, and different signatures. There’s countless other options too, including setting up systems to move emails between accounts, resizing attachments, automatically CC’ing people on certain threads, and more. You’ll find help setting up all these options over on Airmail’s docs page, which is worth a look to see all the stuff Airmail can do.

Spark has a lot of customization options as well, but it’s not as much as Airmail. You can change swipe behavior, swap out different widgets, change some parts of the sidebar, and choose from a couple different themes. That’s plenty for some people, so if customization isn’t important to you, Spark should be fine.

Airmail Integrates With Way More Services

A growing trend with productivity apps is app integration, making it so you can quickly send data from one app to another. In the case of email apps, this typically means linking your email to cloud storage services, calendars, or to-do lists. In this space, Airmail blows Spark out of the water.

Airmail integrates with Apple’s built-in calendars, reminders, and pretty much every cloud storage service out there alongside tons of third-party apps like Wunderlist, Fantastical, Trello, Evernote, Editorial, GitHub, and more. It also allows you to open up links in several third-party browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Mercury. Beyond that, Airmail even supports Workflow, which allows you to create your own custom actions linking Airmail to other apps.

Spark doesn’t come close to Airmail in this regard. It integrates with the main cloud storage services alongside some big third-party options, like OneNote, Evernote, and Pocket.

Airmail is the clear winner here. If you use your email to manage different tasks, create to-dos, link to various notes, or whatever else, Airmail is the app you want to use.

The Verdict: Spark Is the Better App for Most People, but Airmail Is a Power-User’s Dream

Spark and Airmail are distinctive enough that it’s pretty easy to decide which is best for you. If you lament the loss of minimal email apps like Mailbox and Sparrow, Spark is the app you want. If you just want a way to check email, maybe reply to some occasionally, then again, Spark is the app you want. Being free, it’s easy to give it a test drive to see if it works for you.

Airmail comes with that $5 barrier of entry, but it’s well worth the asking price if you consider yourself a power-user. It is customizable to an extreme degree and should suit anyone who relies on email for work. If you spend a lot of time in your email app on your phone, Airmail makes that experience much better.

I Invented Email

The Case for Checking Email First Thing in the Morning

Four Ways to Cut Down on Endless Back-and-Forth Emails

Top 10 Ways You’re Probably Using Email Wrong

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