43 folders Merlin Mann - email organization strategies

BrokerIPTV: We are at San Francisco at Inman Real Estate Connect 2008 and I have the privilege to be with Merlin Mann and Merlin was the introductory speaker today and he was talking about basically how to declutter[phonetic] our digital mess that we are in is personal slaves to our devices and great talk by the way.

Merlin Mann: Oh, thanks a lot Mark, appreciate it.

BrokerIPTV: I know this is a short interview, but is there something you can give our viewers out there as far as a short synopsis of what we can do to kind of manage lives in this new digital age?

Merlin Mann: Sure. Give up. Yeah. No, it is all over. There is no point, you will never catch up. You are going to die behind on email. Yeah, feasibly it is kind of the case. I mean [Inaudible] joke, but the truth of the matter is that people are trying to act that they can keep up with the huge influx of stuff that is coming into their life and I think a lot of us are basically trying to like put new buckets under our roof rather than trying to fix the holes at the top. So, the strategy I already... I always try to get people is to get in there and kind of limit the number of inputs that you allow in and then be very careful about the time that you spend on the stuff that you do allow them.

BrokerIPTV: So, 43folders.com. Tell me about that and what can I see when I go there. Do you have books that are [Inaudible], things I can buy, things that can help me?

Merlin Mann: 43folders is a site about personal productivity. It is very focused at [Inaudible] workers, you know people like computer folks, designers, writers, but in a way very much still relevant to real estate folks. The theme of the site is really kind of dealing with modern overload and trying to come up with some kind of a system for keeping it together and actually focusing on the stuff that is important to you and exclusion of the junk which just wants to steal your time.

BrokerIPTV: Yeah exactly. What I am really seeing here is because of all the social media, what we are really seeing I think is an enhancement of social media and the fact that we have to learn how to manage all the social media pieces and email and responses and posts and things like that are all part of that mess. So, I found your talk to be very alluring. Have you been to Inman before?

Merlin Mann: Year 2000, I was here as part of the industry. I was here on the inside. I had a badge, a paid badge and everything.

BrokerIPTV: So, what is your take on this year's event? What are you gleaning out of this? What is your feeling about the event?

Merlin Mann: It seems well... it seems like it is kind of like it is always kind of the same stuff. I mean for good reason. I mean the struggles that people have regardless of the technology, I mean this is all really the same kinds of issues and I guess the technology evolves and the marketing of that stuff evolves, but it seems like it is kind of the same problems people have faced for 50 years you know. It is how do I get the maximum return on investment for the time I put into what I do and I think that technology for that is kind of interesting.

BrokerIPTV: Well, thank you for speaking with us Merlin. Once again, that is Merlin Mann, 43folders.com.

Posted on October 22, 2008 19:20:41 by Blog Author