SUCCESSFUL Email and Voicemail Management

Over the past few weeks and months, I have come across individuals much young than I (I’m 42 at the time of this blog) who have difficulty either making the time to effectively manage their email or have almost completely ignored it completely. Similarly, some have mismanaged their voicemail to the point that it becomes full and unable to accept additional voicemails, making reaching them next to impossible. Now, I’m not talking about just buddies of mine who either ignorant, lazy or complacent. I’m talking about people in my life who have very “powerful” (okay, they’re not presidents of foreign countries but leaders in their respective fields of service) who, in spite of their busyness, need to be and should be reachable. Hey, am I the only one out there who has experienced this problem?

Unfortunately, I have had friends in the past that I have had to just “cut off” because they were unreachable and didn’t see or feel the need to change their email and voicemail management in such a way to achieve reachability. Unfortunately (?), I value these people in my life too much to do so with them. And it is to them I dedicate this blog.

EMAIL
In order to successfully maintain email, one must, first and foremost, have at least a basic knowledge of their systems, whether it be MS Outlook, Yahoo, Excite, AOL, Hotmail, or (my favorite) GMail. In doing so, look for the system’s options where filters and blocking can be programmed. This one initial thing can be the most crucial action to help fuel your success in the battle of email maintenance and should help to exclude unnecessary email from your Inbox.

The next step is to have a basic knowledge of your Address Book. Many times, you will have a familiarity with your friends’ email addresses enabling you to distinguish the familiar with the unfamiliar. Hotmail and AOL accounts have an option where a user can choose to only receive emails from those included in their Address Book. A general rule of thumb: If you don’t recognize the sender’s address, don’t waste valuable time opening and reading the message! Besides, most Deleted and Trash folders won’t automatically empty for thirty (30) days, giving you plenty of time to retrieve a mistakenly deleted message.

Another step is READING, not skimming, your email messages. In Corporate America, email has become an extremely important communication tool. It can also be effective between friends. I don’t know how many times I have included pertinent information within an email, only to have the recipient haphazardly disregard the message’s contents and mistakes ensued. MOST OF THE TIME, if the message is important, details will be simple to read and understand.

Finally, there’s the maintenance of past emails. With many email systems (like MS Outlook and GMail, folders can be set up where messages can either be programmed to automatically dropped into instead of the Inbox or placed there for storage. For those systems without a folder archive system, simply delete those messages which are over 30-60 days old (or whatever time frame you choose!). Advise: Messages containing attachments tend to use a lot of memory, so Save As those attachments onto your hard drive instead!

VOICEMAIL
Fortunately, voicemail is a lot easier to maintain because many systems only have a limited amount of space or automatically delete within a certain length of time! To keep your voicemail from getting full to the point of not receiving messages, I have found that once I have returned the missed call, I can delete the message! This has been an excellent system for me, which keeps my voicemail vacant and plenty of room for future calls.

Of course, if you need any technical assistance (that's for those in the Dallas area), give me a call!

So, You Wanna Go Back to Egypt?!

At the beginning of the year, I learned that a very good friend of mine had gotten a 90-day devotional (yea, I got it right, Drew!) published and I decided to use it (and the Bible!) for my morning times with God [See link below]

On Day 7 (today for me), I read Genesis 16 of how Ishmael (and today’s modern-day Arabians and Muslims) came into being through Sarai’s and Abram’s not patiently trusting in God’s timing and will. But I also learned the more valuable lesson in that, we as Christians are also constantly returning to our “comfort zones” (not God, but sin) whenever we get or feel insecure. In other words, instead of placing our security on God, we’ll revert back to former sin struggles because we return to the lie (misbelief) that that security is better, greater, more powerful and more reliable than God!

Let us turn our backs on Egypt and forever “[look] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12.2, ESV).

Link to the devotional:
http://www.amazon.com/Going-Places-God-Devotional-Journey/dp/0830743162/sr=8-1/qid=1169470123/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-1085423-8023205?ie=UTF8&s=books

My Goals for Home Group in 2007

So, there I am, sitting with a good friend of mine at Starbucks, enjoying his company (man, I don’t know how, but lately, the ice and cold have started to affect my attitude!), and then I remember, “Oh man! I haven’t written out my goals for what I expect to get from Home Group!” I fully intended to do so, and well, I just procrastinated and forgot! So far, all I’ve got is the first one I sent in an email, which reads: “. . . that we can trust each other enough to pour our lives into each other”. What I mean by that is simply this: I want to be able to tell something personal about my life, whether it be a struggle, temptation or even just how I’m doing emotionally, and know that 1) it’s gonna stay within the group; 2) that it’s not going to kept in a mental file somewhere to be pulled out and used against me later and; 3) that I will continue to be loved and unjudged based on what I’ve shared.

Another goal I have for 2007 is . . . and that’s as far as I have gotten thus far (yeah, I’m sunk!) . . . oh yeah: I’d like to make more of an effort to get together one-on-one with some of my Home Group members for fellowship, whether that be over a meal, a movie, or just sitting and talking over a cup of our favorite beverage (non-alcoholic, preferably!).

Response to the Missouri Miracle

We all work, play, worship, study, go places, and hang out with friends. Some of us live in houses or apartments. Some drive, ride bicycles or public transportation. Many of us (including myself), however, are either oblivious to our surrounding neighbors and people around us or we are too consumed with our own lives to notice or observe our immediate communities.

This past weekend, amidst one of the worst winter storms, a news story broke over the television of the rescue to two young boys, abducted by a 41-year-old Michael J. Devlin, in Kirkwood, MO. According to a recent interview (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/15/lkl.01.html), the kidnapper was a resident of Kirkwood who had been employed for 25 years at a pizzeria . And, despite his quiet demeanor and good naturedness, no one suspected that within the deep darkness lurked someone who had been holding one teenage boy for a few days and another for over four years!

Like a man said just this evening, despite the tips that Kirkwood citizens provided authorities, NO ONE acted on them, which to him indicated a "lack of community".

Just how well DO we know OUR neighbors? And, to what extent and how far?

Top 4 Things that REALLY Upset Me

4. Questioning me about things which you should KNOW I would already know about ("John, are you sure about that?") [Note: This is DEFINITELY a pride issue on my part!]
3. Not paying attention when being spoken to
2. Refusing or disregarding "No"
1. Purposely trying to embarrass me or make me feel uncomfortable