Taking control of your inbox with BACN

So you are probably familiar with the concept of SPAM. A filter that intelligently files away known or suspected offending content. You probably also hit the “spam button” on your email app to delete and also report messages that snuck through anyway, for the benefit of other people.
But what about that mail you asked for, subscribed to, etc – but that doesn’t demand your immediate attention? We call this BACN. Bacon, a close relative to Spam is more flavorful, generally more edible… we want it, albeit not RIGHT NOW. It clogs up your InBox (sorta like too much bacon clogs arteries).

Making the distinction, and regularly filtering the BACN into a sidebox makes all the difference in the world. I do this using Gmail’s wonderful archive/filters feature. Every time I receive a repeat offender, I create a filter as pictured below.

The wonderful effect is that over time your InBox starts to function as just that – a place where primarily relevant need-to-address items come in to the front. You can check the BACN at your leisure. It’s also nice because your Mobile device doesn’t alert you to every server system message, facebook update, linked-in request, apple newsletter etc. you’ve filtered aside. It’s SO nice, I had to tell you about it.