I recently attended a session of The Club where a lovely woman called Ashley Jablow from the Wayfinders Collective talked about reconnecting with your authentic self. But first she explained to us why jumping from problem to solution isn’t always the best thing to do.
Photo by Tim Manhalter on Unsplash
I have known for months that my amusing propensity for starting a new business every other Tuesday has left me with too many email address, too many brand names, and too many websites.
Even worse, I realized that I had completely forgotten to check one of the inboxes for the last month and so had missed important messages from several people. So, this is how I came to discover my first step solution. Thunderbird.
(I once gave a talk to the assembled staff of the first company I properly worked for about how the CEO was secretly building Tracy Island on top of the building next door.) But THIS Thunderbird takes all your email accounts and mashes them into one inbox. While at the same time allowing you to clearly see which emails were to which address, and allowing you to reply from or send emails from any of them. By having them all flow into one place I can no longer lose track of any of them. It has also allowed me to do some sorting and coagulating.
Photo by Lisa Baker on Unsplash
Combining inboxes is just the first step. It’s an emergency solution - an umbrella designed to guard against anything else that might fall as I drop it. Since unexpectedly discovering I had ADHD two years ago I’ve become used to these hoovering up exercises. But it’s not enough just to combine them all and not address the underlying issue. Because eight email accounts is really too many. That’s why I am also in the middle of a branding exercise to somehow organize and manage the teaching, lecturing, in-person events, summits, the online store, etsy, the random consulting, the Patreon, this blog and let’d not forget the aspirational artist bit. Maybe everything should run from beabyrne.com and I’ll be like Martha Stewart and be BFF with Snoop Dogg. Maybe everything except the summits should run from there and quiltnlearn.com should be the summit hub. Maybe everything quilting should go through quiltnlearn.com. In any case, I am already working to phase out lixiemakesit and tourdefabric as separate brand/domain names and email accounts.
So for anyone looking to solve a similar email issue - I recommend Thunderbird. It’s free, has good help docs, and, apart from its rather Windows 2000 appearance, I don’t have any complaints after a solid week of using it.