The Kona Impact Blog

This week we'll have a series of ideas how to get 2010 off to a good start in 2010

If you're like us at Kona Impact, you have, over the years, found yourself subscribed to many email newsletters. For example, the Kona Impact mail server receives about 10 newsletters a day. These include newsletters for web design and marketing, as well as newsletters for companies from which we have bought products in the past. This is exclusive of the hundreds of spam-unsolicited junk mail-reaching our server each day.

After realizing that we only read one or two of the newsletters regularly, we decided to start unsubscribing. In the past, we never replied to unwanted email, as we knew this could just signal the sender that we were actually a real email address and looking at junk mail. This is before the CAN-SPAM law that requires that an email sender clearly identify who is sending the mail and provide unsubscribing information or processes.

Now, if the email is coming from a reputable source, it is safe to unsubscribe without negative consequences. If you get mail that comes from a commercial email system like iContact, Constant Contact or Vertical Response, just scroll to the bottom of the message and unsubscribe without worry. Your name will be taken off the mail list immediately. Many companies have also developed proprietary email system that will allow you to unsubscribe with just one or two clicks.

At Kona Impact, we figured that if we just spent 5 seconds with each unwanted newsletter subscription, we would spend over 30 minutes a month, six hours a year deleting unwanted email.

So, you first Smart Start 2010 task is to unclutter your Inbox a bit and unsubscribe from unimportant newsletters.

Coming tomorrow: Add a signature to your email.