Holiday Email Overload

Do you have a holiday email overload, as I do? If you do a lot of online shopping, you'll automatically be put on  email lists. Work-at-home, self employed individuals have to really watch their time - - and checking email can take away a *lot* of time that could be used more productively.

I follow the Getting Things Done plan, so I have folders set up in my email to dump things into. I sort them into projects by title, someday/maybe, and Waiting on (something). But the onslaught of emails kills me; instead of having no new mail in the inbox, which would indicate that I'm caught up, there are 96 in one and 226 in the other right now. The sheer thought of it overwhelms me.
I think that my email box must be closely related to my snail mail, which also can get overwhelming in a hurry.
I used to only allow myself 15 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening to answer emails. That was in the olden days. Now that everyone uses email for everything, you can't even wade through the titles in 20 minutes. And I resent 30 minutes, twice a day because that's an hour I could be beading.
I do use gmail, which cuts down on spam; you simply don't have it in gmail. There's also a way in gmail to create filters; if Cousin Bob always forwards jokes, make a folder and label it Jokes. Set up a filter, and Bob's jokes will always land there, where you can browse them on Saturday afternoon.

Anyway. Here is an article that suggests some ways to prevent this overload issue. Give them a try and see if you can become more productive. Now -- I'm off to do some aggressive unsubscribing. :)