Lately, I seem to have a huge fixation on email.

Perhaps it’s because not so long ago I had a bit of Excedrin headache issues with mine. The most recent happened when Microsoft released an update. Between my Outlook 2003 and my anti-virus software, I ended up unable to send or receive email using Outlook 2003 for over a week.

It turns out my anti-virus software did not recognize the MS update and caused the “send/receive” feature to stall out. (In fairness to Microsoft, it took a while to resolve the issue because we were unable to reach each other; on several occasions they called me and I was not available. I emailed them and they were unavailable, etc.)

Numerous telephone calls, email conversations and remote hook-ups with Microsoft and my anti-virus provider and many days later eventually resulted in a positive outcome.

And once again I was finally good to go.

But not before I managed to rack up a bit of distress at my inability to send and receive email in a timely manner. Of course, I did have Outlook, and I added Thunderbird. But they just weren’t the same!

That said, now I’m faced with another email issue.

This time, though, it’s because I seem to “somehow” have got on everybody’s list. “Somehow,” of course, really means at my own doing over a course of months it appears I have managed to sign up to receive email ezines/newsletters from “everyone in the whole wide (web) world.”

And more and more I get email, ezines/newsletters and offers, etc., than I have time for. Much of my email is now coming addressed to “undisclosed recipient” (who, for Pete’s sake, is “undisclosed recipient”), advising me I’ve won the lottery in the UK, or the British Prime Minister has a bunch of sterling for me; or I can enter into a very lucrative Hong Kong business proposal, or some woman’s deceased family member deposited a huge sum of money in a foreign bank for me, and they’re waiting to get my name, address, and other identifying information.

And that’s a whole other story.

This too much email dilemma can possibly be resolved in a number of different ways; the most obvious and least disruptive for me would be, when traveling about the Web, to just make it a practice to not sign up for ezines/newsletters or other email notifications. Unfortunately, though, this measure could result in the loss of really great ideas and tips, and networking that could be of benefit at the time you’re at the site or much later down the road.

Another solution might be to set aside time in each day…or at least weekly–to sort through your email to read what is going on in your niche market or an area where you’d like to venture.

It’s not hard to unsubscribe from a list. Well, at least it shouldn’t be, if the form of email that comes to you provides you with a means to unsubscribe. (I have seen instances, though, where it was not possible to unsubscribe.)

Short of unsubscribing, another solution would be to just hit “delete” when the notion strikes.