Common pain point that needs a solution

[Deleted72149]

Salutations

I found a major pain point for me that I am positive many of us have and would like to bring it forth.

I, like I am sure many of you, have an email account, well... Multiple email accounts with thousands and thousands of messages that are unread. And frankly every day I get more emails rendering those accounts almost useless!
However I see hope. There is space for problem solving

Now I am sure there is something that helps you clean your email account up swiftly and efficiently.
But is there anything that helps you mine your email accounts?
When I say mine I mean at some point these email accounts were probably personal. There might me oemails from friends that fell to the wayside amongst so much junk.
And many of the emails are from businesses that at some point we willingly subscribed to.
Therefore those emails if willing to go through them could be valuable

I just bring this to the attention of the community because I thought man, of someone could solve this for me... It would be a tremendous relief. I would get functioning email accounts that were once discarded and put aside.

It is like this with my very first AOL. Account. I have tens of thousands of emails.
There is no hope in my eyes of trying to sift through that mess. The thought however is there is something valuable there... If only I knew how to separate that which is valuable and that which is not. You know how they say one man's trash is another man's treasure. Today I say one man's spam is another man's fortune !

Now I opened this to see what the community thought. To see who else had this problem. And if there was anybody with some unique ideas with what to do with these email accounts.

-moses

 

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[Jobless]

I don't understand the problem.

Usually, any email you receive today is 100x more valuable than an unread email from 5 years ago. Information no longer relevant, offer expired, person you are no longer in contact with etc.

If you want to sift through it, find a way to download all emails in some file format, and use a program to filter/search/analyze for certain keywords. You can probably do this in your email application already.

 

[Deleted72149]

I don't understand the problem.

Usually, any email you receive today is 100x more valuable than an unread email from 5 years ago. Information no longer relevant, offer expired, person you are no longer in contact with etc.

If you want to sift through it, find a way to download all emails in some file format, and use a program to filter/search/analyze for certain keywords. You can probably do this in your email application already.

I ask, why would a recent email be more valuable than an ancient unread one? (assuming the email is not personal or pertinent to your business)
But spam is spam whether old or new.

The problem for me is I have this lovely email account. Still good. Not broken. Filled to the brim with emails... Thousands of them. My father has the same thing.. to the point he will not even check and read that email account unless he KNOWS someone sent him something.. but how often do you think amongst thousands of emails we miss something important? It is reasonable to say pretty often.

It is simply an observation... I have this issue. And I am willing to wager many others have this issue too. And it is no major problem... Just a minor annoyance. But riches are made solving minor annoyances.
Can you tell me honestly that you don't get at least a little annoyed looking at a constant reminder saying 1000 emails?
If u are like me you might just make a new email. But how often are you going to do that and expect to stay in contact with everyone?
Perhaps email is becoming an outdated technology...
Yet and still it feels like walking into a cluttered room every time I look at the thing. You know what I mean? It's my room. For the most part I put everything in there. I know where most stuff is at and u can work through the clutter. But when you finally get that room clean.... Ah!! The feeling is so refreshing. I am sure people could use that.
And this would make many email accounts useful again. Those that were discarded.

Like I have my Gmail. I use that. But my original AOL account I abandoned and is now as a garden overtaken by weeds. The soil is still good for seeds to be planted and one day fruit can grow. But I have to clean it out. I could just delete everything. But I would still recieve spam. It is taxing one by one to unsubscribe from everything and block spammers especially for an account that I have not been using. So I see some value here. As I type it out. There are some spaces for a creative mind to solve this problem and being forth some solutions

 

[Speed112]

I don't quite understand the problem. I have 11 email addresses, most of them with thousands of emails, my main newsletter email has close to 100k emails atm. So?

The emails I care about are unread. All of the other 100k+ emails are read and dealt with. If I want to leave an email for later I mark it as unread or tag it or something so it bugs me.

If I want to find something particular it's as easy as typing a keyword in the filter or search box and I can refine that as much as I want. I've never had trouble finding what I was looking for whether it was from 2 weeks ago or from 10 years ago.

At one point I thought it'd be neat to archive emails based on year... but it didn't change anything. There was no point.

I have my emails archived and synced up on multiple devices so if my PC craps out I don't lose them all. They're all centralized into the same app and organized based on address.

"But spam is spam whether old or new." Spam goes in the spam folder and gets deleted within a week or two. Why would you have spam in your inbox?

"Can you tell me honestly that you don't get at least a little annoyed looking at a constant reminder saying 1000 emails?" Ctrl+A -> Right-click -> Mark as read. Magic. The notifications are gone.

"It is taxing one by one to unsubscribe from everything and block spammers especially for an account that I have not been using." I've been using the same email addresses since I was like 12 years old. I have no spam issue. I don't get it. Actually I have to wrestle with Microsoft for one of my addresses to STOP sending emails I want in my inbox to spam. They still don't let you disable the filter. Awful awful live bs. I can manage spam on my own, it takes a second to click on the junk button.

Unsubscribing from spam lists doesn't remove you from them, it tells them the email address works and makes them send you more spam. Maybe stop doing that and instead mark them as junk so you train your client to recognize them better...

I don't understand how having a million emails in your inbox from the past prevents you from finding the emails that matter: the ones that you got since the last time you checked it. It sounds like a user problem rather than a software problem.

Maybe a course on how to use email effectively in 2022 would be a solution. It's not outdated at all imo.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My email client of choice is Thunderbird btw.

 

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[Deleted72149]

I don't quite understand the problem. I have 11 email addresses, most of them with thousands of emails, my main newsletter email has close to 100k emails atm. So?

The emails I care about are unread. All of the other 100k+ emails are read and dealt with. If I want to leave an email for later I mark it as unread or tag it or something so it bugs me.

If I want to find something particular it's as easy as typing a keyword in the filter or search box and I can refine that as much as I want. I've never had trouble finding what I was looking for whether it was from 2 weeks ago or from 10 years ago.

At one point I thought it'd be neat to archive emails based on year... but it didn't change anything. There was no point.

I have my emails archived and synced up on multiple devices so if my PC craps out I don't lose them all. They're all centralized into the same app and organized based on address.

"But spam is spam whether old or new." Spam goes in the spam folder and gets deleted within a week or two. Why would you have spam in your inbox?

"Can you tell me honestly that you don't get at least a little annoyed looking at a constant reminder saying 1000 emails?" Ctrl+A -> Right-click -> Mark as read. Magic. The notifications are gone.

"It is taxing one by one to unsubscribe from everything and block spammers especially for an account that I have not been using." I've been using the same email addresses since I was like 12 years old. I have no spam issue. I don't get it. Actually I have to wrestle with Microsoft for one of my addresses to STOP sending emails I want in my inbox to spam. They still don't let you disable the filter. Awful awful live bs. I can manage spam on my own, it takes a second to click on the junk button.

Unsubscribing from spam lists doesn't remove you from them, it tells them the email address works and makes them send you more spam. Maybe stop doing that and instead mark them as junk so you train your client to recognize them better...

I don't understand how having a million emails in your inbox from the past prevents you from finding the emails that matter: the ones that you got since the last time you checked it. It sounds like a user problem rather than a software problem.

Maybe a course on how to use email effectively in 2022 would be a solution. It's not outdated at all imo.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My email client of choice is Thunderbird btw.

First... Thanks for the responses guys. I take a moment to say I definitely overcompensated when writing this response. Haha. I was trying to defend the argument that there is value to be found in these emails an opportunity to be had.

Let me be clear,
The only point of making this thread was to bring to the attention truly ripe ground for problem solving.
There are many people who have a handful of email addresses and thousands of emails that they will never go through. Rendering those emails useless or at the least ineffective. It is 2022 and you have all of these unmanaged accounts. What if someone could optimize those emails for you
Show you their use
Make them valuable again?

The only purpose is to bring awareness to something many folk deal with. And really take.an opportunity to brainstorm and creatively learn how to add value

This is what I mean
I open up my AOL email account.
Keep in mind this my very first email account ever I have had it since a youth!
So off rip, it has value to me, and I would like to keep it in good shape.
But oh wait... It has 27 THOUSAND unread emails.
From years of not touching it.

Now this is my ORIGINAL email so it is linked to all my first internet exploration.

My old myspace accounts. All my old friends. ( I stop here, I followed one of the emails from Myspace. Guess what, I found out my Myspace account was actually STILL ACTIVE. it was abandoned been the behemoth currently known as face book came about. But guess what? All my old friends from elementary, middle school highschool was there. The nostalgia factor alone was valuable to me. Holy crap there was so much joy from that lol.

Ok. So let me expand the situation, and anybody who has a vision for may see that there are areas where value may be added.

The first email , lets see, it is a survey company saying I have a payment waiting for me of $175. Woah no way $175 for me!? Cool beans. (Jk) but me, desiring to learn emailing and marketing find this email and say hey there is solid structure here. Someone sent me a letter with copy they wrote out. If I study and read it this email could be of use instead of just trash...
But fine. Chok it up to junk. Put it in the trash, but is there not something to be gained from this email? If only a lesson in email marketing?

Ok next email...
From Instagram...
It says there was an unexpected account logging in with this email. And they wanted to confirm with a security warning.
OH NO! You mean my very first email is being used by someone else to create fake accounts? And something that is of my possessive is in use for it!?
Hey there is a pain point right there! If I found this in the second email I looked at , over the course of 27,000 emails... How many times over has this happened.
This is a "minor" security issue... But surely someone can see an opportunity to add value and solve a problem here , no?
I follow the email... Because obviously I have to stop the tyranny of another being or computer using my account, right. So now I have to login. Change my password JUST to delete the dang on account.
Ouch! That is a pain point. Now I can leave if alone. I had not thought about this email for years... But now I know my email is being used for a false Instagram.
How many times over shall I find this problem? How many false accounts in my name are there?
If someone could help here... Heyyyyy that would be valuable to the market place, no?

Going through a few more emails. Things I find valuable in my view are that these junk emails each have a particular writing style and structure. They each are marketing through email but each a different approach. So I find value in understanding the different approaches

Hoho! Hey here is something. I go through a few more emails I find that I have an email in this account from thefastlaneforum. Noice. I guess this aol account is in more use than I thought!!!
And this just sparked a notion that these accounts which I thought were inactive are in reality very much still in use... Just a thought though

Oh here is a good one. My old PayPal account has been suspended! That is IMPORTANT! Remember PayPal was a major way to pay online once upon a time. It changed the way we do business in many ways. My account had a balance that was unpaid, likely from my old ebay days. This would otherwise go unnoticed and untouched. How.many more emails like this through my many thousands of emails are possible. How much money is left lying on the table?

Got an email from by library.. about over due books... Now by this time I had cleared this debt. However it sparked the notion that in second third grade this was the email I was using to surf the world wide web.

It leaves a digital paper trail of everywhere I have been. Once upon a time I might of used this email to actually email people... Friend teachers employers. There is value in this, no?

Hey. This might be TMI late at night when I am on a website I should not be on, if you catch my drift, and they ask for a login.. I would not give them my real email. I may give them this one... There is value here to he who can see it

Email from eBay .. didn't even know my old ebay account was still active... There is value here.. no?

Here is a neat email. Now I am not into politics. I will choose not to express how I feel about this person in this message. But our former president and his team had an email campaign. And this account was getting emails. Now I know I did not sign up for it. So how did he get the email? But also to take their emails and go through them and see what they did and how they wrote their messages is of great value to someone who desires to learn how to write an effective email campaign . For example the emails say I and I am as though the former president wrote them and is talking directly to me. It invokes a civic duty a call to action! The president has called on me and needs ME to help HIM. I have to act NOW.
Now I realize that the president likely had nothing to do with this. But still this is effective big budget high volume email marketing. This is of value to a man who desires to write solid marketing strategies

Okay I will go through no more emails in this post. But u see where I was going with it
O

Emails from my bank. For state departments and school districts these are important and valuable... No?



Ok going through a couple of these emails. This email marketing world is intense! Constant reminders many emails. They say it takes many letters before you finally get a sale from a prospect.

Also consider this idea, If I am allow you to service my account which I had since a youth 10 11 12 years old, I am giving you access to something, when you think about it , very personal, it is directly linked to my child hood. Now that is an opportunity right there? Because the person who would service this particular account has something that is innately close to me, that I have grown with, and whether I like it or not... There is some sentimental attachment to it! I would not want to lose this account. And if I could make this account more effective that would be valuable

Also consider this. This email stuff... This was sort of the foundation of many peoples internet life. So as we move firmly into this digital age these discarded emails are very literally roots that trace back to beginning of our internet lives... Let the man who has a vision for it take that in...

And besides... Doesn't it turn you hungry entrepreneurs on... Ripe untouched soil, grounds that have grown tangled and wild from no body giving it attention... No overhead cause we are working with emails... And a problem, however major or minor you look at it, a problem that translates across many millions of human beings AND is linked to their very personal email and business accounts. Just talking about it sounds sort of like a fast lane wet dream it you are able to execute.

What about from the aspect of knowledge acquisition.
One of the most important parts about growing your company is 1 knowing who your ideal customer, and 2 knowing your customer better than they know themselves! Their wants their needs.
Think about it. A free service to clean out their emails and make it useful again. How much would you learn about your potential customer, their habits so on and so forth
For example going through these emails I found things that I used to love... But forgot.
Like old online gaming accounts. Or I had a bodybuilding period. A salesman can certainly use these to his advantage. As I write , I suppose this self knowledge is valuable to me

Too the point of just marking everything "read" or trashing it I say NAY! WHY? well this particular account I am going through used to be my main account! What does that mean. At some point I would put this email on resumes. I would give it to my bank. This was a major method of communication. At the time I used this for Job applications and many other things important to me. So there is evidence of these very personal exchanges. I believe this will be a common thread amongst many peoples

I bring this idea up as well. When you do a virgin Forrest. A Forrest untouched by man... You do not just scorch the land and say problem solved (ie clicking all emails and saying read or deleting everything) there is an ecosystem. A natural untouched growth. It is quite beautiful... If you can brong yourself to think of it like that

With that let him who can use this , use this, let it spark your mind! I believe there is opportunity to add massive value here. I believe this is a common thread across many peoples.

Above all else be blessed! Praying for everyone's health safety and success

- Moses
Ps. Rejoice

 

[WJK]

Salutations

I found a major pain point for me that I am positive many of us have and would like to bring it forth.

I, like I am sure many of you, have an email account, well... Multiple email accounts with thousands and thousands of messages that are unread. And frankly every day I get more emails rendering those accounts almost useless!
However I see hope. There is space for problem solving

Now I am sure there is something that helps you clean your email account up swiftly and efficiently.
But is there anything that helps you mine your email accounts?
When I say mine I mean at some point these email accounts were probably personal. There might me oemails from friends that fell to the wayside amongst so much junk.
And many of the emails are from businesses that at some point we willingly subscribed to.
Therefore those emails if willing to go through them could be valuable

I just bring this to the attention of the community because I thought man, of someone could solve this for me... It would be a tremendous relief. I would get functioning email accounts that were once discarded and put aside.

It is like this with my very first AOL. Account. I have tens of thousands of emails.
There is no hope in my eyes of trying to sift through that mess. The thought however is there is something valuable there... If only I knew how to separate that which is valuable and that which is not. You know how they say one man's trash is another man's treasure. Today I say one man's spam is another man's fortune !

Now I opened this to see what the community thought. To see who else had this problem. And if there was anybody with some unique ideas with what to do with these email accounts.

-moses

You must have more time than I have -- since you want to go through all these old messages -- and you have thousands -- and they aren't important enough for you to keep up with them?????

In my mind, it's so simple:
Mark them all by using a universal action. You can mark them all as read. Or just hit delete. Put on your big boy pants and just do it. If nothing else, cancel the account and get on with things.
What's the worst thing that can happen? If someone needs you, they'll find a way. They'll call you up. They'll write you a letter. They'll show up on your doorstep. They'll find you at your work...
Has it ever hit you that a lot of us lived our lives with no internet, no cell phones, no computers, no copy machines, no calculators, no printers... and the list goes on... We actually survived without all of these electronics.

 

[Deleted72149]

You must have more time than I have -- since you want to go through all these old messages -- and you have thousands -- and they aren't important enough for you to keep up with them?????

In my mind, it's so simple:
Mark them all by using a universal action. You can mark them all as read. Or just hit delete. Put on your big boy pants and just do it. If nothing else, cancel the account and get on with things.
What's the worst thing that can happen? If someone needs you, they'll find a way. They'll call you up. They'll write you a letter. They'll show up on your doorstep. They'll find you at your work...
Has it ever hit you that a lot of us lived our lives with no internet, no cell phones, no computers, no copy machines, no calculators, no printers... and the list goes on... We actually survived without all of these electronics.

First wjk thank you for your response!

Pertaining to the amount of time I have... It appears I have the same 24 hours as the next man...

Again I only being up the idea as it may be ripe ground for innovation and an opportunity to add value.

In my eyes it is a potential gold mine!

The comment about no electronics kind of went over my head. I have to tell you... I was not really sure what is meant by this.

Thank you for your response, I notice your tag of legendary contributor and a value the time you spent to add in out

 

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[Speed112]

You must have more time than I have -- since you want to go through all these old messages -- and you have thousands -- and they aren't important enough for you to keep up with them?????

In my mind, it's so simple:
Mark them all by using a universal action. You can mark them all as read. Or just hit delete. Put on your big boy pants and just do it. If nothing else, cancel the account and get on with things.
What's the worst thing that can happen? If someone needs you, they'll find a way. They'll call you up. They'll write you a letter. They'll show up on your doorstep. They'll find you at your work...
Has it ever hit you that a lot of us lived our lives with no internet, no cell phones, no computers, no copy machines, no calculators, no printers... and the list goes on... We actually survived without all of these electronics.

Yeah I think the big deal here is that... 1. Those emails are important but 2. They're not important enough to have been read in the first place.

Let's say you position this solution as an "E-mail address fixer-upper - recover your rundown childhood electronic home and parse through the long-lost memories and hidden nuggets of gold. Who knows what you might find?" And you have a solution that parses through the emails, gives you a summary of the old ones, looks for certain keywords to find missed opportunities, gets rid of common spam, etc.

In my eyes it is a potential gold mine!

Is this something people really need?

If I needed to do that... I'd just do it. It'd take me 30 minutes or a few hours at most. If I'm too lazy to parse through 10000 emails which I can probably do at 100-200 per minute if I'm being conservative, and need a software solution to speed it up, would I bother installing and figuring out some software solution to do it myself? I highly doubt it.

So maybe it's something I need, but not that much or I would've done it already. Not a burning pain.

But lets say the pain is strong enough that I would be willing to do something. Maybe I'd read a 5 minute blog post on how to prospect my email history for interesting content. Could that information teach me how to save an hour of my time and overcome the overwhelming idea of going through thousands of mails? If yes, what is the solution for? If no, why not? Can you do it for me? How much would it cost? What do I gain from it?

This seems like a super personal thing too. The only value I think is worth finding in those emails is super subjective nostalgia. How would your software or service know what evokes those feelings in me? What if you delete some super precious email without knowing and I never find out about it? Sounds risky. If I truly cared about that nostalgia, I wouldn't leave it in the hands of someone who doesn't get me.

Can you prove that you get me?

And besides... Doesn't it turn you hungry entrepreneurs on... Ripe untouched soil

Not really. Email has been a thing for a million years. If there aren't already businesses in place doing this and profiting off it when, as you say, there are a bajillion people who use email and should find value in their inbox treasure trove... chances are they tried this and failed to make it stick.

It's much more effective to take something that already works and make it better.

A free service to clean out their emails and make it useful again. How much would you learn about your potential customer, their habits so on and so forth

Hm so you want the people with the pain to be the product, not the customer. Yeah sure parsing their email history is good data and getting an excuse to go through a ton of personal information to access it sounds fun... But people change.

Salesmen don't sell to 16yo you from the past. They sell to 32yo you in the moment. Using data from the distant past may be interesting, but it's also pretty damn creepy and stalkerish. Not sure it'd have the intended persuasive effect.

Now don't take this as us dismissing your idea. We're just putting it to the test. Hopefully that's what you're here for. Your prospects are a lot more brutal than this, because few things are as painful as being ignored.

But how do you overcome these concerns and prove your value proposition?

I know the type of people you're talking about... those who have 12000 unread emails because they only read 1/20 they receive and they dread looking at their inbox every time they do since they have a hard time filtering the important stuff from all the noise. I get where you're coming from...

But imo that's not a problem anyone can solve but them. It's an issue of skill/knowledge and tools wouldn't help much. It's their fault for ignoring 90% of their emails and letting them pile up and not knowing how to manage their inbox. And if the value/cost balance shifts a little bit so that it's worth not ignoring the 90% anymore... then they would act and wouldn't need you to do anything because the work is low difficulty, just high volume.

The margin for coming in and doing something about it on their behalf seems really narrow, and the cost of letting a stranger dig through their personal communications with a ton of sensitive information potentially is probably insurmountable.

But maybe not...

Continue exploring this if you feel there's really something there. Try getting on the phone with a few of these people that you can identify. Friends, family, people you come across whom you notice have 999+ unread emails... Ask them how they feel about it. How much it hurts them. What would they like to do about it but can't.

Who knows? Maybe the answer won't always be "Hm I haven't actually thought about this before. It's not that important to me." and you can get someone to trust and have you solve it for them.

The answers are with others who share the pain. Let us know what your findings are.

 

[Deleted72149]

You must have more time than I have -- since you want to go through all these old messages -- and you have thousands -- and they aren't important enough for you to keep up with them?????

In my mind, it's so simple:
Mark them all by using a universal action. You can mark them all as read. Or just hit delete. Put on your big boy pants and just do it. If nothing else, cancel the account and get on with things.
What's the worst thing that can happen? If someone needs you, they'll find a way. They'll call you up. They'll write you a letter. They'll show up on your doorstep. They'll find you at your work...
Has it ever hit you that a lot of us lived our lives with no internet, no cell phones, no computers, no copy machines, no calculators, no printers... and the list goes on... We actually survived without all of these electronics.

Actually. The idea of a no electronics business sounds attractive. To do business entirely face to face. In the flesh

Yeah I think the big deal here is that... 1. Those emails are important but 2. They're not important enough to have been read in the first place.

Let's say you position this solution as an "E-mail address fixer-upper - recover your rundown childhood electronic home and parse through the long-lost memories and hidden nuggets of gold. Who knows what you might find?" And you have a solution that parses through the emails, gives you a summary of the old ones, looks for certain keywords to find missed opportunities, gets rid of common spam, etc.


Is this something people really need?

If I needed to do that... I'd just do it. It'd take me 30 minutes or a few hours at most. If I'm too lazy to parse through 10000 emails which I can probably do at 100-200 per minute if I'm being conservative, and need a software solution to speed it up, would I bother installing and figuring out some software solution to do it myself? I highly doubt it.

So maybe it's something I need, but not that much or I would've done it already. Not a burning pain.

But lets say the pain is strong enough that I would be willing to do something. Maybe I'd read a 5 minute blog post on how to prospect my email history for interesting content. Could that information teach me how to save an hour of my time and overcome the overwhelming idea of going through thousands of mails? If yes, what is the solution for? If no, why not? Can you do it for me? How much would it cost? What do I gain from it?

This seems like a super personal thing too. The only value I think is worth finding in those emails is super subjective nostalgia. How would your software or service know what evokes those feelings in me? What if you delete some super precious email without knowing and I never find out about it? Sounds risky. If I truly cared about that nostalgia, I wouldn't leave it in the hands of someone who doesn't get me.

Can you prove that you get me?



Not really. Email has been a thing for a million years. If there aren't already businesses in place doing this and profiting off it when, as you say, there are a bajillion people who use email and should find value in their inbox treasure trove... chances are they tried this and failed to make it stick.

It's much more effective to take something that already works and make it better.


Hm so you want the people with the pain to be the product, not the customer. Yeah sure parsing their email history is good data and getting an excuse to go through a ton of personal information to access it sounds fun... But people change.

Salesmen don't sell to 16yo you from the past. They sell to 32yo you in the moment. Using data from the distant past may be interesting, but it's also pretty damn creepy and stalkerish. Not sure it'd have the intended persuasive effect.

Now don't take this as us dismissing your idea. We're just putting it to the test. Hopefully that's what you're here for. Your prospects are a lot more brutal than this, because few things are as painful as being ignored.

But how do you overcome these concerns and prove your value proposition?

I know the type of people you're talking about... those who have 12000 unread emails because they only read 1/20 they receive and they dread looking at their inbox every time they do since they have a hard time filtering the important stuff from all the noise. I get where you're coming from...

But imo that's not a problem anyone can solve but them. It's an issue of skill/knowledge and tools wouldn't help much. It's their fault for ignoring 90% of their emails and letting them pile up and not knowing how to manage their inbox. And if the value/cost balance shifts a little bit so that it's worth not ignoring the 90% anymore... then they would act and wouldn't need you to do anything because the work is low difficulty, just high volume.

The margin for coming in and doing something about it on their behalf seems really narrow, and the cost of letting a stranger dig through their personal communications with a ton of sensitive information potentially is probably insurmountable.

But maybe not...

Continue exploring this if you feel there's really something there. Try getting on the phone with a few of these people that you can identify. Friends, family, people you come across whom you notice have 999+ unread emails... Ask them how they feel about it. How much it hurts them. What would they like to do about it but can't.

Who knows? Maybe the answer won't always be "Hm I haven't actually thought about this before. It's not that important to me." and you can get someone to trust and have you solve it for them.

The answers are with others who share the pain. Let us know what your findings are.

To wjk your comment
"Has it ever hit you that a lot of us lived our lives with no internet, no cell phones, no computers, no copy machines, no calculators, no printers... and the list goes on... We actually survived without all of these electronics."

I have literally never even considered this notion until today. That seems to me an infallible reality. And even moreso unrealistic considering the time we are in. Man how did you survive those dark ages (I joke! No offense meant)

To speed -
Hey! Thank you for your response. Your response sounded to me sincere and I appreciate the effort and time you have taken to share your ideas. I am grateful.

So I shall respond peice by peice to your response.
To the point of the messages not being important enough to read in the first place... You know what I may agree with you here. It is easy to say there is very little importance here and thus dismiss it.

Now I really appreciate that you took the time to imagine a potential solution. You could easily have dismissed me. Again, I agree with you if it was that serious I would just go through them it does not take a terribly long time.
But who has the time nowadays? We are on the back portion of a pandemic and I have important tv shows I need to binge watch. Truly it is delicate work.
But in all honesty if someone brought forth a free solution that did not require much installation,
the vision being something like a browser application, put in your email , give special permissions and within a few moments your email account is organized and the mail is all accounted for in a way that is easy to read and understand. I might enjoy that.
Its like having a filthy pair of shoes that are still good! Someone comes in and cleans them and you go "man I got my favorite shoes back"

I May also compare this problem to something like cleaning your home. Yes, I can do it. It takes not long. But I have continually put it off. And likely will continue to , because as you said, it is not that great of a pain. But as wjk said in this sense I must put on my big boy pants and simply do the work.

Now I can clean out the account. The problem is... I would still be getting a great deal of emails everyday. I could block those who send their mail letters. Mark it as spam. Subscribe one by one. But if I do not solve this portion within a few weeks I would have many many emails again. Which would not be a problem assuming I am actively using the account.

The portion that attracts me when thinking about this problem is the many separate businesses that have emailed me. Large company's like department stores and smaller companies like law firms.
The thing about email. Just like they can email me, well now I can collect those emails... And email them! And depending on the mailing strategy I take on I can make the very companies that were marketing me.... My own client. But this is fanciful thinking. I have no clue how I would do that.


But to the point of not a major pain have you have heard the story of the army who lost their battle because of pebbles in their shoes?

There was a war. And one side decided to infiltrate the facility that made the oppositions boots and they put small pebbles in them. Now initially the army who now had pebbles in their shoes thought little of it. They proceeded as usual. But these rocks in their shoes over the course of long drawn out marches created serious pain over time. And a slew of other problems which ultimately led to their defeat.
This seemingly small problem that was of little initial pain, ended up being a great problem with sever consequences.
Now this is a cliff notes of this parable... I actually believe this was something that happened in a real war but I digress...

Coming back to the topic.
Now I really value you challenging me to think a little deeper.

Now you said it will take you 30 min to a few hours... Is that for one account... Or all of them? If you are like me... You have a handful of old accounts not just one. And surely I am not spending this much time to go through these emails especially if I do not use these accounts.

But to that same point. The reason with many of these accounts that I ceased using them was BECAUSE it became an overwhelming task to care for them

Too the point of the nostalgia factor and the personal account. I am with you here. That which is precious should not be left in the hands of a stranger.
It would help to separate that which is spam and junk and irrelevant from that which is personal urgent and important... But that is a potent question... How would we discern accurately for our client.
Perhaps a solution to this nostalgia factor is not to do it for you. But to give you a better tool. Something that lets you better manage your accounts. One thing that makes it hard to go through these emails. Is it is a lot of emails. Many different senders. Small font. It is ugly and tedious. But a clean beautiful appealing application that lets me gracefully navigate my email.
Heeey that sounds much more viable as an idea

The part that really sticks out for me is that I have given my email to so many different causes over the years. Making purchases. Making new accounts. Subscribing to mailing lists...
If there was a way to see all of those websites my email was associated with and easily subscribe or unsubscribe (and perhaps take further action) that is attractive to me. The vision: I got to the website (ie. Recovermyemail.com) I put in my email address and it pulls up a list of all the websites that have you in their database or mailing list. And I can manage all of those in one place subscribing unsubscribing at will.

Another aspect is the security of my email. Quickly looking at my old email I found someone likely a computer had been logging into an Instagram that had my email... Now this is something I would not mind having handled! To think my email, a personal email at that, is being used by others for profit or whatever purposes they see fit. And we all know they sell email addresses. So if there was some type of security for my email. Something simple that offers me greater peace of mind. Oh ya I could see that being a great sales point. To be able to secure your email and protect it against such attacks. Peace of mind is worth a lot more!

To your point of it is more effective to take something that already works and make it better....
How do we make email better? Email I like because I do not imagine it going anywhere... For me, it is the best way to get in contact with me. I love the idea of living without a phone. On my business cards I only have my email address on it. So as I travel and hand out my cards and people reach out. They are getting direct access to my email and all the people I interact with are conviently there. It is my preferred way of communication in reality. I may respond at my own pace. There is not this pressure as there is with phones to respond promptly.. or even at all.
I am surprised I have not found a virtual Mail solution. Sending video messages back and forth.

Lets go forward
To the point of going through someone's personal information and accumulating knowledge as creepy and stalkerish I contest it is no more creepy and stalkerish than google adwords and how they collect all of our search information and digital trail and then being forth ads that match what you just did.

It is important to know your customer, intimately, I once heard you must know them better than they know them selves... So certainly old emails would give you keen insights.

However I do not want to go through people's private messages. That is not attractive to me. Invasion of privacy and invasion of digital privacy is real and I would not want this done to me. So this aspect of this topic is a turn off.

To continue. " Don't take this as us dismissing your idea"
-man the fact you sat here. Read my post and are helping me work through this idea means the world. The fact you are challenging me has already helped me to think In new ways. So sincerely... Thank you!

Returning to an old point of just marking everything "read" or deleting. I offer this up. Imagine you went traveling around the world. Away from your home address for a couple years. You come home to 100s of peices of mail. You do not just throw them in a bin and call them "read" do you? Heck no! Much of that stuff would be irrelevant... However there will certainly be some very important peices of mail, right or wrong?
_---------
This right here is the exact pain I mean... I see you do understand what I mean

I know the type of people you're talking about... those who have 12000 unread emails because they only read 1/20 they receive and they dread looking at their inbox every time they do since they have a hard time filtering the important stuff from all the noise. I get where you're coming from..
-----

And again your following point is correct it is up to the individual to manage his inbox.
As I grow through my own email I look at these emails and say "how can I make these make sense?" By that I mean can I somehow make these many emails profitable to me? Somehow an asset. That is why I suggest collecting emails and harvesting particular messages and mail campaigns that I may study and grow.

I really do view this email as an unkept garden. It's like looking outside the window of my home and seeing a bunch of weeds in my garden. A space of Ungroomed land. And if I could just learn to care for and keep this garden it could one day bear good fruits and be a host to that which is beautiful and helpful.
A once ugly eye sore is now a sight for sore eyes!

Again, speed , wjk, thank you for your responses, as well as any other readers who have come forth since writing this

- Moses

 

[Speed112]

Actually. The idea of a no electronics business sounds attractive. To do business entirely face to face. In the flesh

To wjk your comment
"Has it ever hit you that a lot of us lived our lives with no internet, no cell phones, no computers, no copy machines, no calculators, no printers... and the list goes on... We actually survived without all of these electronics."

I have literally never even considered this notion until today. That seems to me an infallible reality. And even moreso unrealistic considering the time we are in. Man how did you survive those dark ages (I joke! No offense meant)

To speed -
Hey! Thank you for your response. Your response sounded to me sincere and I appreciate the effort and time you have taken to share your ideas. I am grateful.

So I shall respond peice by peice to your response.
To the point of the messages not being important enough to read in the first place... You know what I may agree with you here. It is easy to say there is very little importance here and thus dismiss it.

Now I really appreciate that you took the time to imagine a potential solution. You could easily have dismissed me. Again, I agree with you if it was that serious I would just go through them it does not take a terribly long time.
But who has the time nowadays? We are on the back portion of a pandemic and I have important tv shows I need to binge watch. Truly it is delicate work.
But in all honesty if someone brought forth a free solution that did not require much installation,
the vision being something like a browser application, put in your email , give special permissions and within a few moments your email account is organized and the mail is all accounted for in a way that is easy to read and understand. I might enjoy that.
Its like having a filthy pair of shoes that are still good! Someone comes in and cleans them and you go "man I got my favorite shoes back"

I May also compare this problem to something like cleaning your home. Yes, I can do it. It takes not long. But I have continually put it off. And likely will continue to , because as you said, it is not that great of a pain. But as wjk said in this sense I must put on my big boy pants and simply do the work.

Now I can clean out the account. The problem is... I would still be getting a great deal of emails everyday. I could block those who send their mail letters. Mark it as spam. Subscribe one by one. But if I do not solve this portion within a few weeks I would have many many emails again. Which would not be a problem assuming I am actively using the account.

The portion that attracts me when thinking about this problem is the many separate businesses that have emailed me. Large company's like department stores and smaller companies like law firms.
The thing about email. Just like they can email me, well now I can collect those emails... And email them! And depending on the mailing strategy I take on I can make the very companies that were marketing me.... My own client. But this is fanciful thinking. I have no clue how I would do that.


But to the point of not a major pain have you have heard the story of the army who lost their battle because of pebbles in their shoes?

There was a war. And one side decided to infiltrate the facility that made the oppositions boots and they put small pebbles in them. Now initially the army who now had pebbles in their shoes thought little of it. They proceeded as usual. But these rocks in their shoes over the course of long drawn out marches created serious pain over time. And a slew of other problems which ultimately led to their defeat.
This seemingly small problem that was of little initial pain, ended up being a great problem with sever consequences.
Now this is a cliff notes of this parable... I actually believe this was something that happened in a real war but I digress...

Coming back to the topic.
Now I really value you challenging me to think a little deeper.

Now you said it will take you 30 min to a few hours... Is that for one account... Or all of them? If you are like me... You have a handful of old accounts not just one. And surely I am not spending this much time to go through these emails especially if I do not use these accounts.

But to that same point. The reason with many of these accounts that I ceased using them was BECAUSE it became an overwhelming task to care for them

Too the point of the nostalgia factor and the personal account. I am with you here. That which is precious should not be left in the hands of a stranger.
It would help to separate that which is spam and junk and irrelevant from that which is personal urgent and important... But that is a potent question... How would we discern accurately for our client.
Perhaps a solution to this nostalgia factor is not to do it for you. But to give you a better tool. Something that lets you better manage your accounts. One thing that makes it hard to go through these emails. Is it is a lot of emails. Many different senders. Small font. It is ugly and tedious. But a clean beautiful appealing application that lets me gracefully navigate my email.
Heeey that sounds much more viable as an idea

The part that really sticks out for me is that I have given my email to so many different causes over the years. Making purchases. Making new accounts. Subscribing to mailing lists...
If there was a way to see all of those websites my email was associated with and easily subscribe or unsubscribe (and perhaps take further action) that is attractive to me. The vision: I got to the website (ie. Recovermyemail.com) I put in my email address and it pulls up a list of all the websites that have you in their database or mailing list. And I can manage all of those in one place subscribing unsubscribing at will.

Another aspect is the security of my email. Quickly looking at my old email I found someone likely a computer had been logging into an Instagram that had my email... Now this is something I would not mind having handled! To think my email, a personal email at that, is being used by others for profit or whatever purposes they see fit. And we all know they sell email addresses. So if there was some type of security for my email. Something simple that offers me greater peace of mind. Oh ya I could see that being a great sales point. To be able to secure your email and protect it against such attacks. Peace of mind is worth a lot more!

To your point of it is more effective to take something that already works and make it better....
How do we make email better? Email I like because I do not imagine it going anywhere... For me, it is the best way to get in contact with me. I love the idea of living without a phone. On my business cards I only have my email address on it. So as I travel and hand out my cards and people reach out. They are getting direct access to my email and all the people I interact with are conviently there. It is my preferred way of communication in reality. I may respond at my own pace. There is not this pressure as there is with phones to respond promptly.. or even at all.
I am surprised I have not found a virtual Mail solution. Sending video messages back and forth.

Lets go forward
To the point of going through someone's personal information and accumulating knowledge as creepy and stalkerish I contest it is no more creepy and stalkerish than google adwords and how they collect all of our search information and digital trail and then being forth ads that match what you just did.

It is important to know your customer, intimately, I once heard you must know them better than they know them selves... So certainly old emails would give you keen insights.

However I do not want to go through people's private messages. That is not attractive to me. Invasion of privacy and invasion of digital privacy is real and I would not want this done to me. So this aspect of this topic is a turn off.

To continue. " Don't take this as us dismissing your idea"
-man the fact you sat here. Read my post and are helping me work through this idea means the world. The fact you are challenging me has already helped me to think In new ways. So sincerely... Thank you!

Returning to an old point of just marking everything "read" or deleting. I offer this up. Imagine you went traveling around the world. Away from your home address for a couple years. You come home to 100s of peices of mail. You do not just throw them in a bin and call them "read" do you? Heck no! Much of that stuff would be irrelevant... However there will certainly be some very important peices of mail, right or wrong?
_---------
This right here is the exact pain I mean... I see you do understand what I mean

I know the type of people you're talking about... those who have 12000 unread emails because they only read 1/20 they receive and they dread looking at their inbox every time they do since they have a hard time filtering the important stuff from all the noise. I get where you're coming from..
-----

And again your following point is correct it is up to the individual to manage his inbox.
As I grow through my own email I look at these emails and say "how can I make these make sense?" By that I mean can I somehow make these many emails profitable to me? Somehow an asset. That is why I suggest collecting emails and harvesting particular messages and mail campaigns that I may study and grow.

I really do view this email as an unkept garden. It's like looking outside the window of my home and seeing a bunch of weeds in my garden. A space of Ungroomed land. And if I could just learn to care for and keep this garden it could one day bear good fruits and be a host to that which is beautiful and helpful.
A once ugly eye sore is now a sight for sore eyes!

Again, speed , wjk, thank you for your responses, as well as any other readers who have come forth since writing this

- Moses

It's great that you can defend the idea like this.

Looking it from a business perspective it might have more merit, than from a regular folk's view.

You can start with a free app for the regular user and have a corporate version that provides additional features: security, encryption, archiving. Email is adequate for evidence in legal battles. Digging through 1000 emails from years of communications to find relevant stuff after you get in judicial conflict with someone sounds like a pain someone might want solved (I had to do that last year),

Trust is a big factor, though.

Cleaning services work that way as well. A regular folk is gonna clean their own house, maybe once for a special occasion they hire someone to do a thorough job. A business, however, has someone cleaning up at the end of each shift.

Hope you find your niche here.

 

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[WJK]

First wjk thank you for your response!

Pertaining to the amount of time I have... It appears I have the same 24 hours as the next man...

Again I only being up the idea as it may be ripe ground for innovation and an opportunity to add value.

In my eyes it is a potential gold mine!

The comment about no electronics kind of went over my head. I have to tell you... I was not really sure what is meant by this.

Thank you for your response, I notice your tag of legendary contributor and a value the time you spent to add in out

I hope it is a gold mine for you. My comment about time is that I don't spend much time on past messages and emails -- in fact, next to none. I clear my emails every day so they don't build up.

But, maybe they will have value to you. I am starting a new business this summer, so I'm now laying the groundwork for that business. You're right in this way. I'm using a lot of existing resources for that new business. I will use the prospect database from one business for an aspect of the new business.

The comment about no electronic is because I started this career 46 years ago and we had none of that. It all hadn't been invented. Yet. We used electric typewriters. For math, we used paper, pencil, and our heads. In fact, on my first state RE salesman exam, we weren't allowed to use calculators. They were used in the science communities and were not available to most people.

When we first got pagers, I had a business partner named John. He refused to get one because he didn't want our sales staff to be that dependent on him. And John did NOT want to be available outside of our normal business hours. How the world has changed since then. Are we truly more productive by using all these devices?

Maybe you'll find gold in your old emails. If you spent the same amount of time on prospecting new leads, would you be ahead or behind? I don't know the answer to that. If you spend your time on the emails, I hope you find that pot of gold.

 

[Xavier X]

When we first got pagers, I had a business partner named John. He refused to get one because he didn't want our sales staff to be that dependent on him. And John did NOT want to be available outside of our normal business hours. How the world has changed since then. Are we truly more productive by using all these devices?

Sure there's a point of diminishing returns, but overall, yes. I believe we have the tools to be more productive, by a long shot.
Note I said we have the tools. Having the tools for something doesn't mean you'll use it. Many people don't, some do.

A related example would be people used to spend weeks perusing thousands of pages of paper documents, to find specific information. Today, CTRL+F and you're on your way. Weeks of coffee drinking and chain smoking over piles of paper saved.
If that's not more productive, I don't know what is.

I get your point about people getting by with things as they were in the old days, and still being productive (as defined by the times). However, the convenience and increased productivity that tech innovations have offered people today can't be discounted.

 

[WJK]

Sure there's a point of diminishing returns, but overall, yes. I believe we have the tools to be more productive, by a long shot.
Note I said we have the tools. Having the tools for something doesn't mean you'll use it. Many people don't, some do.

A related example would be people used to spend weeks perusing thousands of pages of paper documents, to find specific information. Today, CTRL+F and you're on your way. Weeks of coffee drinking and chain smoking over piles of paper saved.
If that's not more productive, I don't know what is.

I get your point about people getting by with things as they were in the old days, and still being productive (as defined by the times). However, the convenience and increased productivity that tech innovations have offered people today can't be discounted.

Personally, I'm a lot more productive than I was then. It has to do with laser focus on what is important. When I started appraising real estate decades ago, I had to have 4 full-time secretaries to produce the reports. When I retired, it was me and my computer. I needed no human help. I have my bookkeeping for my businesses down to 1 hour per day. I have a huge all-in-one machine for each of my offices to process the paperwork. I've been paperless for years. I kick @$$ and take names later.
BUT, after saying that, I watch a lot of people around me that use their electronic devices to waste time. They are addicted to stuff that amuses them, but makes no money or saves them time. They are caught in these social media and gaming loops that are crazy to me. I talked to young man who was building a virtual kingdom the other day. I asked him why he didn't build a real one. He was shocked at my question. He'd never even thought about buying and managing real properties -- with real tenants and making real money. It was a novel idea to him. Uh?

 

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[Deleted72149]

Now as I continue thinking about potential solutions
I start with the end in mind.

The vision is a clean email account ready for use.

Personally, I'm a lot more productive than I was then. It has to do with laser focus on what is important. When I started appraising real estate decades ago, I had to have 4 full-time secretaries to produce the reports. When I retired, it was me and my computer. I needed no human help. I have my bookkeeping for my businesses down to 1 hour per day. I have a huge all-in-one machine for each of my offices to process the paperwork. I've been paperless for years. I kick @$$ and take names later.
BUT, after saying that, I watch a lot of people around me that use their electronic devices to waste time. They are addicted to stuff that amuses them, but makes no money or saves them time. They are caught in these social media and gaming loops that are crazy to me. I talked to young man who was building a virtual kingdom the other day. I asked him why he didn't build a real one. He was shocked at my question. He'd never even thought about buying and managing real properties -- with real tenants and making real money. It was a novel idea to him. Uh?

Man you guys are top notch.
There are some really practical peices of wisdom here.
When thinking about this problem I shall take wjk advice and just go through my own email. This should give me better insight about what to expect. And take speeds insight on just asking about this problem to other people.

Something that really caught me though is this shift of doing virtual business. And I really want to build a reputation as man who is accessible and real. Not a virtual entity. I want people to know my face and who I am and to be able to walk up to me in person and in my hometown and shake my hand . This is a vision of success for me.

Wjk what do you contribute your laser focus to? Is it clear goals. Is it based on a burning desire of something you want. How have you made yourself to be more focused.

Also, if you allow me to pick your brain a little more, how have you adjusted your business to keep up with this digital age. I saw you said you are now 'paperless" what do you mean by this?
What other processes have you implemented to take on this digital age.

Another question while I am picking is how do you manage your work life balance do you find it difficult to balance work and family life or easy. And why. And do you have a plan to rest. As in like for example my bible says six days God created the heaven and the earth and on the seventh he rested. An that is why Jews observe the Sabbath day to this day so they may rest from all their work.

What is your rest plan like... If you have one. Or do you just work until you burn out and then rinse repeat.

Lastly... For someone reason this was burning on my heart to ask...
How do you spend your quiet time. When the universe allows you moments of quiet what do you like to do? Do you read or write. Or meditate? Golf? What are your more serene moments like.

- moses

 

[WJK]

Now as I continue thinking about potential solutions
I start with the end in mind.

The vision is a clean email account ready for use.

Man you guys are top notch.
There are some really practical peices of wisdom here.
When thinking about this problem I shall take wjk advice and just go through my own email. This should give me better insight about what to expect. And take speeds insight on just asking about this problem to other people.

Something that really caught me though is this shift of doing virtual business. And I really want to build a reputation as man who is accessible and real. Not a virtual entity. I want people to know my face and who I am and to be able to walk up to me in person and in my hometown and shake my hand . This is a vision of success for me.

Wjk what do you contribute your laser focus to? Is it clear goals. Is it based on a burning desire of something you want. How have you made yourself to be more focused.

Also, if you allow me to pick your brain a little more, how have you adjusted your business to keep up with this digital age. I saw you said you are now 'paperless" what do you mean by this?
What other processes have you implemented to take on this digital age.

Another question while I am picking is how do you manage your work life balance do you find it difficult to balance work and family life or easy. And why. And do you have a plan to rest. As in like for example my bible says six days God created the heaven and the earth and on the seventh he rested. An that is why Jews observe the Sabbath day to this day so they may rest from all their work.

What is your rest plan like... If you have one. Or do you just work until you burn out and then rinse repeat.

Lastly... For someone reason this was burning on my heart to ask...
How do you spend your quiet time. When the universe allows you moments of quiet what do you like to do? Do you read or write. Or meditate? Golf? What are your more serene moments like.

- moses

I'll answer your questions tomorrow on my day off. It will take some time to craft my answers. Thanks for asking. I love your questions.

Right now I am working on my adding to my prospect database for my current side gig and the new business that I am starting this summer. I'm researching public records to add people to my list. I work at it for a couple of hours each night while I rest.

Why do I do this? I figure it this way. Some people play games. Some people get drunk. Some people eat potato chips. Whatever they do... I just do some more of my research. It's success one inch at a time...

 

[WJK]

Wjk what do you contribute your laser focus to? Is it clear goals. Is it based on a burning desire of something you want. How have you made yourself to be more focused.

I've copied your post into my journal notes. You asked very interesting questions. So, I will try to answer one at a time, if that's OK with you.

Laser focus has to do with making a decision and being 100% into that decision. For me, it starts with 2 components -- defined determination and very strict moral standards.

Defined determination requires you to be very sure about your direction and your decision. It assumes that you have carefully vetted and thought through that path. You must be totally sure of your direction. And that decision becomes the basis for your determination to make that decision work.

Great truths are elegantly simple. So are good decisions. It's the execution that can be become murky IF you feel internally conflicted. Laser focus requires you to resolve those conflicts before you commit. It's not solving all the problems upfront. That's not possible. But, the internal conversation must be about solving those problems rather than questions about the decision itself. You must commit to exploring every possible solution to the problems you will encounter.

Here's a story for you... I saw an interview many years ago with 3 men that were in a climbing team getting ready to scale a major mountain. The first two men were asked IF they were going to make it. One said he would try. The other said he was going to do his best, but it was going to be a tough climb. When asked, the third man said, "Yes, I am going to stand on the summit." The third man was the only man who finished the climb. It gets
back to the old truisms -- triers are liars. You either do or you don't. The second man stated his built-in excuse -- it's a tough climb. The third man was focused on and determined to succeed. That's a totally different mindset.

Why strict moral standards? I can always make more money. I cannot make more time. By having high personal standards, I can maximize my time. What do they have to do with one another? I totally believe in karma. In the Christian faith -- it's reaping what you sow. I try to make sure that I intentionally NEVER hurt another person. That doesn't mean that I can't protect myself. I do not enable others in their bad behaviors. But, I believe that the Universe has rules and I live within them.

Here's another story for you. I think of my life like planting corn. You take one kernel and put it in the ground to plant a corn stock. With tending, that corn stock grows. What do you get back? From one small kernel, you get a huge stock of corn with hopefully several ears of corn. That's at least hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of kernels back from planting one little kernel.

Life is like that. Whatever you do -- even the smallest act -- can have far-reaching effects. Small acts of kindness can positively change another life. Even a small unkindness can take years to overcome.

Think of it like this. If you do something right, the person will tell a couple of other people. If you do something wrong, they will tell 8 or 10 other people all about it. What kind of damage control program can you afford to do to counter one small slip? How much time and effort must you give to overcome one lapse? How can you focus on your goals if you are doing big-time damage control? So why go there in the first place? You can't control other people, but you can control yourself. So, set your personal standards and totally live them. It cuts out a lot of the chaos in your life. It allows you to focus on those elegantly simple decisions.

 

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[Deleted72149]

I've copied your post into my journal notes. You asked very interesting questions. So, I will try to answer one at a time, if that's OK with you.



Laser focus has to do with making a decision and being 100% into that decision. For me, it starts with 2 components -- defined determination and very strict moral standards.



Defined determination requires you to be very sure about your direction and your decision. It assumes that you have carefully vetted and thought through that path. You must be totally sure of your direction. And that decision becomes the basis for your determination to make that decision work.



Great truths are elegantly simple. So are good decisions. It's the execution that can be become murky IF you feel internally conflicted. Laser focus requires you to resolve those conflicts before you commit. It's not solving all the problems upfront. That's not possible. But, the internal conversation must be about solving those problems rather than questions about the decision itself. You must commit to exploring every possible solution to the problems you will encounter.



Here's a story for you... I saw an interview many years ago with 3 men that were in a climbing team getting ready to scale a major mountain. The first two men were asked IF they were going to make it. One said he would try. The other said he was going to do his best, but it was going to be a tough climb. When asked, the third man said, "Yes, I am going to stand on the summit." The third man was the only man who finished the climb. It gets

back to the old truisms -- triers are liars. You either do or you don't. The second man stated his built-in excuse -- it's a tough climb. The third man was focused on and determined to succeed. That's a totally different mindset.



Why strict moral standards? I can always make more money. I cannot make more time. By having high personal standards, I can maximize my time. What do they have to do with one another? I totally believe in karma. In the Christian faith -- it's reaping what you sow. I try to make sure that I intentionally NEVER hurt another person. That doesn't mean that I can't protect myself. I do not enable others in their bad behaviors. But, I believe that the Universe has rules and I live within them.



Here's another story for you. I think of my life like planting corn. You take one kernel and put it in the ground to plant a corn stock. With tending, that corn stock grows. What do you get back? From one small kernel, you get a huge stock of corn with hopefully several ears of corn. That's at least hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of kernels back from planting one little kernel.



Life is like that. Whatever you do -- even the smallest act -- can have far-reaching effects. Small acts of kindness can positively change another life. Even a small unkindness can take years to overcome.



Think of it like this. If you do something right, the person will tell a couple of other people. If you do something wrong, they will tell 8 or 10 other people all about it. What kind of damage control program can you afford to do to counter one small slip? How much time and effort must you give to overcome one lapse? How can you focus on your goals if you are doing big-time damage control? So why go there in the first place? You can't control other people, but you can control yourself. So, set your personal standards and totally live them. It cuts out a lot of the chaos in your life. It allows you to focus on those elegantly simple decisions.

Wow. There was a point when reading this I literally said "wow" out loud.

Thank you for such a thorough response.

As a result of the care you have taken in your response I too have copied your response into my journal.

My most active internet time is late at night especially after midnight. As my apartment is as a bunker and through out the day I will often have absolutely no service to get on the internet, unless I am in certain positions.

Therefore allow me a moment to properly respond.

Additionally, it means a great deal that you have taken such time to answer me. Thank you.

 

[Deleted72149]

I've copied your post into my journal notes. You asked very interesting questions. So, I will try to answer one at a time, if that's OK with you.

Laser focus has to do with making a decision and being 100% into that decision. For me, it starts with 2 components -- defined determination and very strict moral standards.

Defined determination requires you to be very sure about your direction and your decision. It assumes that you have carefully vetted and thought through that path. You must be totally sure of your direction. And that decision becomes the basis for your determination to make that decision work.

Great truths are elegantly simple. So are good decisions. It's the execution that can be become murky IF you feel internally conflicted. Laser focus requires you to resolve those conflicts before you commit. It's not solving all the problems upfront. That's not possible. But, the internal conversation must be about solving those problems rather than questions about the decision itself. You must commit to exploring every possible solution to the problems you will encounter.

Here's a story for you... I saw an interview many years ago with 3 men that were in a climbing team getting ready to scale a major mountain. The first two men were asked IF they were going to make it. One said he would try. The other said he was going to do his best, but it was going to be a tough climb. When asked, the third man said, "Yes, I am going to stand on the summit." The third man was the only man who finished the climb. It gets
back to the old truisms -- triers are liars. You either do or you don't. The second man stated his built-in excuse -- it's a tough climb. The third man was focused on and determined to succeed. That's a totally different mindset.

Why strict moral standards? I can always make more money. I cannot make more time. By having high personal standards, I can maximize my time. What do they have to do with one another? I totally believe in karma. In the Christian faith -- it's reaping what you sow. I try to make sure that I intentionally NEVER hurt another person. That doesn't mean that I can't protect myself. I do not enable others in their bad behaviors. But, I believe that the Universe has rules and I live within them.

Here's another story for you. I think of my life like planting corn. You take one kernel and put it in the ground to plant a corn stock. With tending, that corn stock grows. What do you get back? From one small kernel, you get a huge stock of corn with hopefully several ears of corn. That's at least hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of kernels back from planting one little kernel.

Life is like that. Whatever you do -- even the smallest act -- can have far-reaching effects. Small acts of kindness can positively change another life. Even a small unkindness can take years to overcome.

Think of it like this. If you do something right, the person will tell a couple of other people. If you do something wrong, they will tell 8 or 10 other people all about it. What kind of damage control program can you afford to do to counter one small slip? How much time and effort must you give to overcome one lapse? How can you focus on your goals if you are doing big-time damage control? So why go there in the first place? You can't control other people, but you can control yourself. So, set your personal standards and totally live them. It cuts out a lot of the chaos in your life. It allows you to focus on those elegantly simple decisions.

Quick response (written after writing the rest of the post that I may protect your investment of time and energy and attention. Which I acknowledge are truly valuable forms of currency)

So your laser focus comes from knowing definitely what you want, this, as a result, allows you to Put all you have into your work and shifts your mind to a position where it may problem solve.

The man who makes it to the summit is he who decided he WILL. rather than he will try.

Moral standards prevent most of our problems and infact elicit many of our blessings. By doing right we eliminate chaos and bs!
This allowing greater success to be had!
Our deeds are as seeds planted yeilding , from one seed, a harvest many times the size of that. Good or bad.

Thanks for your time - moses

---

Initial post:

Now I quick precursor, a great contributor within this thread told me to use fewer words when I write.... It is not intentional that my response is long winded ... So I thank you a ahead of time for the investment of time and energy you make in your reading and response.

As this is public posting I like to say I hope these posts help other beings , as well, acting as a benefit to the community and not just my own being.

Let us move forward.

In an effort of reciprocation, just as you answered one at a time, so I shall respond one at a time.

So with this laser focus you have something very specific, and definite in mind, correct? This means your mind is not going in many different directions, rather it is totally focused, and all of your resources to one direction. Right? I can see how this immediately offers stability in decision making. As you do not er from left to right. Being swayed by the wind or the trend. Being pulled this way or that by life's circumstance. That is powerful right there.


What is the vetting process like as you think through your path? What do you take into consideration? You mentioned in another post you have over 46 years of experience, this allows you foresight and wisdom and perhaps even additional vision when seeing your path and potential difficulties.

I have a definite goal. I have taken time to define it. And why I want it. How do I put it through the vetting process. What questions have you asked yourself? How have you insured this is the path for you without a second doubt in your mind? I can immediately see the benefits of being so as you say laser focused, I might call it single minded.

I believe I get what you are saying about the inner conflicts. Once you have decided what you want, those questions and potential problems come up. This part is... Natural, or unavoidable, correct? But the distinct difference, as I gathered, is that the questions and problems are no longer toward your decision (i.e. is this the right move? Is this really what I want? Is it even worth the effort?) But the questions and problems that arise are now perhaps obstacles and challenges that you have already firmly decided you shall over come for you know what you want without a second doubt. The question is no longer what do I want or where am I going. But now the resolve is to solve the problems regardless of what may come up for your destination is more compelling than the problems you shall face. Is this What you are saying or have I missed something crucial, you mentioned great truths are elegantly simple.. could you simplify it for us?

Now this mountain story was the part that made me say "wow"
My mother raised me with this qoute "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" I am a firm believer that the Way you talk and think shape your reality and your success.
Indeed the mindset is totally different isn't it. I never had it put into perspective like this

Now, this moral standards stands out to me above all else.
When you do right, good things happen to you. And we must develop an unwillingness to compromise what is right for temporary or material gain. All that is on the earth shall perish one day. But our souls and our deeds extend past many generations. Oh man this really struck a core value within me!

It is so true. Our actions have this... Compounding effect. One action leads to the other and that one to many others.
And that good. Multiplies. As does the bad.

To add to your point, often times we face a circumstance and it feels like it is only happening right now and it came up all of a sudden. But many times it is the result of a seed planted many moons prior and that fruit had come to fruition.

Small acts of kindness do wonderous things for the Human being. And right living, at the end of the day, shall trump material gain or the pursuit of pleasure.

It is so true even a small unkindness can stick with a person. Something small, over time, snowballs then avalanches! We see the big snowfall, but we often forget about the initial snowball.

I see what you mean, so having these personal standards, something like a moral code, prevents these negative seeds these hurtful snowballs from developing at all.
It is impossible to make progress if all you are doing is constantly cleaning up the mess we have made through negligence of personal standard. I will chew on this idea a bit more. This is wisdom that I can walk with for a long time as well as see the effects.
That damage control can be prevented entirely from this personal standard. Boy! That is profound. You know how many fires I have to put out because I neglected to do the right thing on a small scale?

I saw something people often will forget your name. And what you said. But they will never forget how you made them feel.

To the point of personal standards. How do you set such a standard for yourself? Do you have these ideals written somewhere you can see it? Is it engrained in your heart from years of life? Is this something you have specially chosen for yourself, or was this a passive development over time?

wjk after going through your response It felt like you were speaking to me , truly, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, if only through the context of this here forum post.

Thank you for your time!

I get to the end of this post.
And realize I have written... Much more than I anticipated.

So I shall summarize a more quick response. And place it at the top, in this way you may not need to invest much time and energy into communicating back and forth.

-moses

 

[biophase]

I haven’t read all the replies, but if you have 27000 emails in your AOL account and you haven’t used it since 2005. Then you can just delete all emails from 2005-present. You already know that the valuable emails are the oldest ones.

 

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[WJK]

Quick response (written after writing the rest of the post that I may protect your investment of time and energy and attention. Which I acknowledge are truly valuable forms of currency)

So your laser focus comes from knowing definitely what you want, this, as a result, allows you to Put all you have into your work and shifts your mind to a position where it may problem solve.

The man who makes it to the summit is he who decided he WILL. rather than he will try.

Moral standards prevent most of our problems and infact elicit many of our blessings. By doing right we eliminate chaos and bs!
This allowing greater success to be had!
Our deeds are as seeds planted yeilding , from one seed, a harvest many times the size of that. Good or bad.

Thanks for your time - moses

---

Initial post:

Now I quick precursor, a great contributor within this thread told me to use fewer words when I write.... It is not intentional that my response is long winded ... So I thank you a ahead of time for the investment of time and energy you make in your reading and response.

As this is public posting I like to say I hope these posts help other beings , as well, acting as a benefit to the community and not just my own being.

Let us move forward.

In an effort of reciprocation, just as you answered one at a time, so I shall respond one at a time.

So with this laser focus you have something very specific, and definite in mind, correct? This means your mind is not going in many different directions, rather it is totally focused, and all of your resources to one direction. Right? I can see how this immediately offers stability in decision making. As you do not er from left to right. Being swayed by the wind or the trend. Being pulled this way or that by life's circumstance. That is powerful right there.


What is the vetting process like as you think through your path? What do you take into consideration? You mentioned in another post you have over 46 years of experience, this allows you foresight and wisdom and perhaps even additional vision when seeing your path and potential difficulties.

I have a definite goal. I have taken time to define it. And why I want it. How do I put it through the vetting process. What questions have you asked yourself? How have you insured this is the path for you without a second doubt in your mind? I can immediately see the benefits of being so as you say laser focused, I might call it single minded.

I believe I get what you are saying about the inner conflicts. Once you have decided what you want, those questions and potential problems come up. This part is... Natural, or unavoidable, correct? But the distinct difference, as I gathered, is that the questions and problems are no longer toward your decision (i.e. is this the right move? Is this really what I want? Is it even worth the effort?) But the questions and problems that arise are now perhaps obstacles and challenges that you have already firmly decided you shall over come for you know what you want without a second doubt. The question is no longer what do I want or where am I going. But now the resolve is to solve the problems regardless of what may come up for your destination is more compelling than the problems you shall face. Is this What you are saying or have I missed something crucial, you mentioned great truths are elegantly simple.. could you simplify it for us?

Now this mountain story was the part that made me say "wow"
My mother raised me with this qoute "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" I am a firm believer that the Way you talk and think shape your reality and your success.
Indeed the mindset is totally different isn't it. I never had it put into perspective like this

Now, this moral standards stands out to me above all else.
When you do right, good things happen to you. And we must develop an unwillingness to compromise what is right for temporary or material gain. All that is on the earth shall perish one day. But our souls and our deeds extend past many generations. Oh man this really struck a core value within me!

It is so true. Our actions have this... Compounding effect. One action leads to the other and that one to many others.
And that good. Multiplies. As does the bad.

To add to your point, often times we face a circumstance and it feels like it is only happening right now and it came up all of a sudden. But many times it is the result of a seed planted many moons prior and that fruit had come to fruition.

Small acts of kindness do wonderous things for the Human being. And right living, at the end of the day, shall trump material gain or the pursuit of pleasure.

It is so true even a small unkindness can stick with a person. Something small, over time, snowballs then avalanches! We see the big snowfall, but we often forget about the initial snowball.

I see what you mean, so having these personal standards, something like a moral code, prevents these negative seeds these hurtful snowballs from developing at all.
It is impossible to make progress if all you are doing is constantly cleaning up the mess we have made through negligence of personal standard. I will chew on this idea a bit more. This is wisdom that I can walk with for a long time as well as see the effects.
That damage control can be prevented entirely from this personal standard. Boy! That is profound. You know how many fires I have to put out because I neglected to do the right thing on a small scale?

I saw something people often will forget your name. And what you said. But they will never forget how you made them feel.

To the point of personal standards. How do you set such a standard for yourself? Do you have these ideals written somewhere you can see it? Is it engrained in your heart from years of life? Is this something you have specially chosen for yourself, or was this a passive development over time?

wjk after going through your response It felt like you were speaking to me , truly, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, if only through the context of this here forum post.

Thank you for your time!

I get to the end of this post.
And realize I have written... Much more than I anticipated.

So I shall summarize a more quick response. And place it at the top, in this way you may not need to invest much time and energy into communicating back and forth.

-moses

Moses, You ask me what I do for fun. I've wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl. Rather than writing a book, which I would have to market, I have done my writing a little bit differently.
I used to write a real estate column in a local newspaper when I lived in Los Angeles. In exchange for that column, I got to go to all the press events and there were a lot of fun days. The guy who owned the paper had a big black limo and his chauffer's hat. He'd take his staff to all kinds of fun stuff. One day, we went to a hot air balloon show that the paper covered. Have you ever ridden in a hot air balloon? I have. We went to plays, movies, events, and all kinds of stuff for free.
You asked me who reads my posts here on the Forum. I have some followers. And I am able to make a difference for many people by answering questions and talking about my 46 years in business.
Going on the Forum is part of my R&R. I get to write down my ideas and talk to different people through our conversations & posts. I'm contributing because I really want to help younger people who are starting out. Good people helped me when I was young. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.

 

[Deleted72149]

Moses, You ask me what I do for fun. I've wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl. Rather than writing a book, which I would have to market, I have done my writing a little bit differently.
I used to write a real estate column in a local newspaper when I lived in Los Angeles. In exchange for that column, I got to go to all the press events and there were a lot of fun days. The guy who owned the paper had a big black limo and his chauffer's hat. He'd take his staff to all kinds of fun stuff. One day, we went to a hot air balloon show that the paper covered. Have you ever ridden in a hot air balloon? I have. We went to plays, movies, events, and all kinds of stuff for free.
You asked me who reads my posts here on the Forum. I have some followers. And I am able to make a difference for many people by answering questions and talking about my 46 years in business.
Going on the Forum is part of my R&R. I get to write down my ideas and talk to different people through our conversations & posts. I'm contributing because I really want to help younger people who are starting out. Good people helped me when I was young. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.

Wjk. I just assumed you were a man.

I haven’t read all the replies, but if you have 27000 emails in your AOL account and you haven’t used it since 2005. Then you can just delete all emails from 2005-present. You already know that the valuable emails are the oldest ones.

What's going on biophase. I have seen your posts around the forum for years. Thanks for the post.

As to deleting everything... The idea is this is untouched space. It has grown organically without my hands on it. The idea is there is some value to these many emails. That out of these thousands of emails there is profit to be found. The thinking is to just delete years of such naturally digital growth Would be a tragedy. Just this notion there is something of worth in there. Or some way to create value.

 

[Deleted72149]

Moses, You ask me what I do for fun. I've wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl. Rather than writing a book, which I would have to market, I have done my writing a little bit differently.
I used to write a real estate column in a local newspaper when I lived in Los Angeles. In exchange for that column, I got to go to all the press events and there were a lot of fun days. The guy who owned the paper had a big black limo and his chauffer's hat. He'd take his staff to all kinds of fun stuff. One day, we went to a hot air balloon show that the paper covered. Have you ever ridden in a hot air balloon? I have. We went to plays, movies, events, and all kinds of stuff for free.
You asked me who reads my posts here on the Forum. I have some followers. And I am able to make a difference for many people by answering questions and talking about my 46 years in business.
Going on the Forum is part of my R&R. I get to write down my ideas and talk to different people through our conversations & posts. I'm contributing because I really want to help younger people who are starting out. Good people helped me when I was young. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.

Wjk. I thought you were a man. For give me for such an assumption.

No I have never ridden in a hot air balloon. That must be exhilarating. My stomach would sink into my ankles from being so high but I imagine the views are unparalleled.

Ok. So I see now you are a writer. This is great to hear. I believe this is what I am called to do in this life time. To write. This is a purpose my grandfather gave me when my grandmother saying "perhaps your purpose is to be the greatest writer you can be"
Maybe that is why your words resonate.

I have tried my hand at script writing. Never able to finish a whole script. But I do write books. Poetry. Rhymes. I make rap music... So I write a lot of rhymes.
I struggle trying to make my writing make sense. I have never made any money from my writings... notebooks many notebooks over a dozen filled to the brim with rhymes and poetry and wisdoms. And even more word documents many many pages of writing. I keep working thinking one day I will make this make sense. It frustrates me. I have so much knowledge so many pages of writing yet I am not making money from it. Perhaps that is a good thing though. Writing is a joy. And something I do naturally without the incentive of money.

 

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[WJK]

Wjk. I thought you were a man. For give me for such an assumption.

No I have never ridden in a hot air balloon. That must be exhilarating. My stomach would sink into my ankles from being so high but I imagine the views are unparalleled.

Ok. So I see now you are a writer. This is great to hear. I believe this is what I am called to do in this life time. To write. This is a purpose my grandfather gave me when my grandmother saying "perhaps your purpose is to be the greatest writer you can be"
Maybe that is why your words resonate.

I have tried my hand at script writing. Never able to finish a whole script. But I do write books. Poetry. Rhymes. I make rap music... So I write a lot of rhymes.
I struggle trying to make my writing make sense. I have never made any money from my writings... notebooks many notebooks over a dozen filled to the brim with rhymes and poetry and wisdoms. And even more word documents many many pages of writing. I keep working thinking one day I will make this make sense. It frustrates me. I have so much knowledge so many pages of writing yet I am not making money from it. Perhaps that is a good thing though. Writing is a joy. And something I do naturally without the incentive of money.

Moses, I made a very good living off of my writing, but it was NOT fun writing. In my career, I was a commercial real estate appraiser and an expert witness in Federal and State court in real estate matters. I did a lot of 100+-page technical reports and legal papers. I did a lot of consulting and some teaching. After my first kids left home (in my early 40's), I went back to law school and got my Juris Doctorate - my 4th college degree.

But, today in my private life, I am a retired woman who has raised two families and now has grandchildren. I'm not good at being retired, so I'm a professional real estate investor. And I have some side gigs. I still work every day. I have worked just about every day of my life since I was 11 years old.

Yes, I do fun things too. You ask -- so I'll tell you about my day off. Today, after finishing my chores, I sewed for a while in my art studio. I designed a couple of covers for some new portable hard drives I got recently -- so I can safely carry them around with me. My assistant and I deep cleaned my self-service Laundromat this morning when I opened it. We deep clean it every Sunday morning. I researched some more property records for my business database. I fixed a nice lunch for my husband and me. He's working on remodeling our kitchen right now. Today he's putting in the new flooring. (It's pretty and it was "such a deal". I bought that pallet of flooring on closeout deal really cheap.) I wrote you and another young man with whom I'm having conversations. He and I are talking about how to learn about investing for passive income. vs. business income. I talked to some friends and made a lunch date for tomorrow with a girlfriend. She was the top real estate listing agent in the State of Alaska for 2021. We are dear friends so I offered to buy her lunch. We bantered back and forth about whose turn it is to buy the lunch. She wants to buy it for me. And she wants to hear about the new real estate business that I'm starting.

That business idea is growing to be much bigger than ever planned or imagined from when I committed to one little corner of this picture. I've been having meetings with my real estate friends and they can't wait for me to get it all set up. It's going to end up filling a group of real needs here in my community, rather than just my original singular idea. The license will allow me to do a range of business activities. I've finished the required education and I passed the Federal exam. I've filed the LLC with the State and bought the domain name. I've lined up a local IT company to set up the online presence. Now I'm doing the rest of the paperwork for the license and the company -- getting everything else set up. I'll start on that to-do list again tomorrow morning. I want to be ready for our summertime construction season.

And now, to end my day off, I think I'll go take a nice hot bubble bath. That's after I cover up my commercial sewing machine and the other one that I used today. You are the sum of the smallest, routine decisions that you make moment to moment... So, I'll take the time to make sure that I correctly cover and protect my machines while I run my bath water...

Chew on what we've been talking about. You are the writer of your life. You can fill your blank pages with what is important to you. Think of all the ways you can take the same fact pattern and tell your story. How will the different versions and points of view change you as a person? How will they influence your journey and your ultimate destiny? Always remember that you are the only authentic author of this story...

 

[WJK]

Wjk. I thought you were a man. For give me for such an assumption.

No I have never ridden in a hot air balloon. That must be exhilarating. My stomach would sink into my ankles from being so high but I imagine the views are unparalleled.

Ok. So I see now you are a writer. This is great to hear. I believe this is what I am called to do in this life time. To write. This is a purpose my grandfather gave me when my grandmother saying "perhaps your purpose is to be the greatest writer you can be"
Maybe that is why your words resonate.

I have tried my hand at script writing. Never able to finish a whole script. But I do write books. Poetry. Rhymes. I make rap music... So I write a lot of rhymes.
I struggle trying to make my writing make sense. I have never made any money from my writings... notebooks many notebooks over a dozen filled to the brim with rhymes and poetry and wisdoms. And even more word documents many many pages of writing. I keep working thinking one day I will make this make sense. It frustrates me. I have so much knowledge so many pages of writing yet I am not making money from it. Perhaps that is a good thing though. Writing is a joy. And something I do naturally without the incentive of money.

Moses, you ask me how I vet new projects and businesses. Here's my answer:

First, when I come up with the idea, I must ask myself a bunch of questions. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to do the research and look into my heart.

1. What do I want to do? Does it have a name? Can I research it?
2. Who else is doing it or has done it? Does it have a tribe? Does it have an association?
3. Who can I talk to? Who has the best information to help me make an informed decision?
4. Is there an unserved nitch that I can occupy? (I don't want to compete in a crowded field)
5. What resources, both time and money, will a start-up cost me? Can I do it?
6. Do I really, really want to do it? I finish what I start, so I must want to do it bad enough to go the whole distance.
7. What are the risks? I must be willing to totally fail -- lose every dime along with the time that I will put in. I must also be willing to succeed. What if it becomes the elephant in the room and takes over my life? Either end of the spectrum can cause a life-altering crisis. I cannot make the decision IF I won't accept the risks.
8. Will it fit. Change is uncomfortable. Can I make room in my life for something new -- without feeling like a hapless juggler, standing on the edge of the earth, fumbling my all-important balls, while slipping toward that unforgiving long fall?
9. Can I just stick my toe in that water without jumping in. Can I take some small acts without totally committing to the whole idea? Or is it an all-or-nothing idea?

And this is the shortlist. What questions would you ask yourself?

 

[Deleted72149]

Moses, you ask me how I vet new projects and businesses. Here's my answer:

First, when I come up with the idea, I must ask myself a bunch of questions. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to do the research and look into my heart.

1. What do I want to do? Does it have a name? Can I research it?
2. Who else is doing it or has done it? Does it have a tribe? Does it have an association?
3. Who can I talk to? Who has the best information to help me make an informed decision?
4. Is there an unserved nitch that I can occupy? (I don't want to compete in a crowded field)
5. What resources, both time and money, will a start-up cost me? Can I do it?
6. Do I really, really want to do it? I finish what I start, so I must want to do it bad enough to go the whole distance.
7. What are the risks? I must be willing to totally fail -- lose every dime along with the time that I will put in. I must also be willing to succeed. What if it becomes the elephant in the room and takes over my life? Either end of the spectrum can cause a life-altering crisis. I cannot make the decision IF I won't accept the risks.
8. Will it fit. Change is uncomfortable. Can I make room in my life for something new -- without feeling like a hapless juggler, standing on the edge of the earth, fumbling my all-important balls, while slipping toward that unforgiving long fall?
9. Can I just stick my toe in that water without jumping in. Can I take some small acts without totally committing to the whole idea? Or is it an all-or-nothing idea?

And this is the shortlist. What questions would you ask yourself?

I see.
Some of the questions I ask myself especially as of late ..
How does this help my wife and children? When I write I often consider the posterity. I want my children to have works from their father that makes their life easier.
I ask am I putting my wife first?

Before I start. I try to ask what is it that I am making? I like to have a vision of what it is I am writing.
Also why? What is the purpose of this piece (even if it is a totally simple non important reason. To know helps alot)

I would ask myself who is this for? Above I stated I always consider my wife and children. However not every work is meant for them to read.

I ask... Do I enjoy doing this? I have found myself rejecting the work I have began because I hated what I was doing.

I ask myself what colors I want to use? ( This is an abstract question) but I I like to paint. And many parrells are between writing and painting. I do not see my writing as just black and white words. My writing depicts images in my own mind

I ask when do I want people to recieve this? Is this for right now. Or will my target receive it later?

I ask can I protect it and how? ( When I was a child I wrote a story in marker. I spend days on it. So much work. And then it rained! And I lost all that work. And for I long time I did not write stories again for fear of simply losing what I made)

I ask does this make sense? Many projects we are able to pursue... But does this leave me in a better position in the end? Or will by the time I complete this shall I be left in a deficit ?(of energy resources and time)

I repeat this one, what is it that I am making? Am I writing rhymes? Am I writing a story ?

What else would I ask ...
What is the aim? The definite purpose?
The end goal?

 

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[Jacques141]

I know this thread went a different direction already, but I wanted to add this: personally I'm all for zero inbox. Meaning I archived all my emails. When I receive a new one, I read it, and when the situation is resolved (for instance I pay the bill that came in that email), I archive the email. Most of the time, especially when bills are due, I dont have more than 10 emails in my inbox - Primary inbox that is. I delete all the promotional emails.

I did all that with gmails basic tools in the search bar.

From another perspective, I think it may only be my prejudice; my point of view. I just read about that principle in the rat race book haha. Maybe people need a solution to this problem, because they dont have my technical skills or the foresight that would tell them that this even CAN be done.

 

[Alferez]

Salutations

I found a major pain point for me that I am positive many of us have and would like to bring it forth.

I, like I am sure many of you, have an email account, well... Multiple email accounts with thousands and thousands of messages that are unread. And frankly every day I get more emails rendering those accounts almost useless!
However I see hope. There is space for problem solving

Now I am sure there is something that helps you clean your email account up swiftly and efficiently.
But is there anything that helps you mine your email accounts?
When I say mine I mean at some point these email accounts were probably personal. There might me oemails from friends that fell to the wayside amongst so much junk.
And many of the emails are from businesses that at some point we willingly subscribed to.
Therefore those emails if willing to go through them could be valuable

I just bring this to the attention of the community because I thought man, of someone could solve this for me... It would be a tremendous relief. I would get functioning email accounts that were once discarded and put aside.

It is like this with my very first AOL. Account. I have tens of thousands of emails.
There is no hope in my eyes of trying to sift through that mess. The thought however is there is something valuable there... If only I knew how to separate that which is valuable and that which is not. You know how they say one man's trash is another man's treasure. Today I say one man's spam is another man's fortune !

Now I opened this to see what the community thought. To see who else had this problem. And if there was anybody with some unique ideas with what to do with these email accounts.

-moses

Well, I don't think this old emails have any value, even with marketing or whatever.

If you need some help with your business concept: I would not buy a solution like this.

The main reason is because I don't clearly understand what's the point with reading old emails.

BUT!, maybe I'm wrong, maybe all of us are wrong.

What I would do in your situation is to test your idea in the market!!
Just run some ads where you explain your offer.

If you discover it's real demand in the market for the solution, you have real data about it, and not opinions from strangers online. Opinions are worthless, just go to the market, FAKE you already have the solution, and see how many people are interested, if the BUY you the solution, that's a hard evidence.

 

[Andreas Thiel]

Have not read all the messages here, but there is definitely a problem ... but not sure about how great the opportunity really is and how much effort would go into a solution.
Business people keep repeating that data is the new gold and that you just need to be able to tap that potential, but that has always been too abstract for me.

The company I work for currently tries to address that issue and dozens (maybe hundreds) of people are on it and have been for years.
The overarching strategy is "Smart Home Assistance" and the project is labeled "Smart Inbox".
They partner up with companies and sort incoming mails into categories like Contracts, Newsletters, Social Media etc.
The plan is acting as an identity broker and ascertaining a LOA (Level Of Assurance) for the businesses and making some revenue through value-added services in different verticals.

They have also partnered up with the postal service to show previews of physical mail. I think at this point the contents are not visible, just a digital copy of the envelope. Eventually they want to get to a point where many official documents never have to be printed and are delivered in secure electronic form instead.

Personally I get destroyed by the problem myself and the Smart Inbox is not helping much (just a little).
I am not really a fan of the abstract "data is gold" sentiment - I would want to see at least a rough outline of what the business model could look like.
RSS Feeds posed a similar issue and there was never that one huge killer solution. Now there are Social Media Feeds. I guess the next big thing will probably be bot-to-bot communication and humans will get to see a "digest" of what the algorithms think might be important ... plus ways to dig into what happened when needed.

I think it is a very fragmented and volatile market. As a small player you need a great vision and product to get noticed.

 

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[Deleted72149]

I know this thread went a different direction already, but I wanted to add this: personally I'm all for zero inbox. Meaning I archived all my emails. When I receive a new one, I read it, and when the situation is resolved (for instance I pay the bill that came in that email), I archive the email. Most of the time, especially when bills are due, I dont have more than 10 emails in my inbox - Primary inbox that is. I delete all the promotional emails.

I did all that with gmails basic tools in the search bar.

From another perspective, I think it may only be my prejudice; my point of view. I just read about that principle in the rat race book haha. Maybe people need a solution to this problem, because they dont have my technical skills or the foresight that would tell them that this even CAN be done.

Whats up Jacques. Nice name. My personal account I have no problem. It is not difficult to maintain.

Well, I don't think this old emails have any value, even with marketing or whatever.

If you need some help with your business concept: I would not buy a solution like this.

The main reason is because I don't clearly understand what's the point with reading old emails.

BUT!, maybe I'm wrong, maybe all of us are wrong.

What I would do in your situation is to test your idea in the market!!
Just run some ads where you explain your offer.

If you discover it's real demand in the market for the solution, you have real data about it, and not opinions from strangers online. Opinions are worthless, just go to the market, FAKE you already have the solution, and see how many people are interested, if the BUY you the solution, that's a hard evidence.

What's up man
I have no offer at this time. No true idea.
I am not even all that interested in going through these emails.
My personal email, Jacques, is not a problem.
It is my old email that garners that interest of this post.
To delete all my emails an what not is simple. But then it is this notion there is nothing in my life that has exhibited such organic growth.
I am personifying this machine here, but in my eyes it is like a living organism. I consider it to a child that has never had his hair cut before. So his hair is so long ( the emails being the uncut hair) and sure you cut the hair... You get a clean look. But you have just chopped off what took years to grow...
That is the notion that most interests me about this.

This idea that this email has grown in a very unique manner and to simply delete everything and day job done seems foolish and as a missed opportunity.

My only solution at this time is to go through it. And this way I may be the judge whether it is valuable or not. Well I guess the question is not whether it is valuable. The real question is what value can I add here. Thanks for the response.

 

[Deleted72149]

Have not read all the messages here, but there is definitely a problem ... but not sure about how great the opportunity really is and how much effort would go into a solution.
Business people keep repeating that data is the new gold and that you just need to be able to tap that potential, but that has always been too abstract for me.

The company I work for currently tries to address that issue and dozens (maybe hundreds) of people are on it and have been for years.
The overarching strategy is "Smart Home Assistance" and the project is labeled "Smart Inbox".
They partner up with companies and sort incoming mails into categories like Contracts, Newsletters, Social Media etc.
The plan is acting as an identity broker and ascertaining a LOA (Level Of Assurance) for the businesses and making some revenue through value-added services in different verticals.

They have also partnered up with the postal service to show previews of physical mail. I think at this point the contents are not visible, just a digital copy of the envelope. Eventually they want to get to a point where many official documents never have to be printed and are delivered in secure electronic form instead.

Personally I get destroyed by the problem myself and the Smart Inbox is not helping much (just a little).
I am not really a fan of the abstract "data is gold" sentiment - I would want to see at least a rough outline of what the business model could look like.
RSS Feeds posed a similar issue and there was never that one huge killer solution. Now there are Social Media Feeds. I guess the next big thing will probably be bot-to-bot communication and humans will get to see a "digest" of what the algorithms think might be important ... plus ways to dig into what happened when needed.

I think it is a very fragmented and volatile market. As a small player you need a great vision and product to get noticed.

Whats going on Andreas. Thanks for the input.

I never even considered a business model or even know how to put together such a thing.

I just know a lot of emails. CoMINg from a lot of separate and unique sources
With a technology, that at it's time, was cutting edge and a really big deal.
If one were to be able to map an email account, visually Connecting each email to it's reciever and its sender,I believe we would see the account is much more like a living organism than a lifeless entitie.

You ever see those scientists images of the mind and how each cell is sort of connected. Forming this I intricate network of brain cells. That is how I imagine these email accounts, all connected to this big world wide web.

That is why I think simply deleting years of untouched growth would be.mm a disappointment to say the least.

-moses