If you have your own small business there are a couple of things you need to make your life easier.

1. Email first – The first thing is a gmail account. Sure there are other e-mail accounts but gmail includes lots of things that will really make your life easier.

If you have one, or two, or many e-mail accounts. You can use gmail to send and recieve all the e-mail from all your old accounts. I have about 8 that funnel into my gmail account. You can setup filters and labels to see were all the mail is coming from. There are settings that will allow you to automatically reply from the address they sent it to, or you can choose to send if from your new gmail account.

I could write a very long tutorial, but you just need to get in and start using it and then try some of the tweeks. here is a link to google e-mail help

2. Get a junk e-mail account. I rarely get use my main e-mail account to sign into services I am testing. I have a spam e-mail were all of my services testing gets sent. Companies are getting way better about not selling lists of e-mails, so I really don’t get that much spam. But It keeps me from getting junk I am kind of interested about out of my mail box.

3. Use the spam button. I am pretty sure all the major e-mail providers who use internet e-mail clients have a spam button. Some of the desk top clients it takes a couple of clicks but the same functionality is there. If I get e-mail that I can’t identify the sender I send it to spam. If I can’t get a company to take me off there e-mail list I send it to spam. I just checked my spam folder on g-mail 755 messages. I just went into the folder to delete it all with one click. Very nice. I smiled because at the top of the list was a company I originally wanted to get information from. But when they weren’t giving me good information I tried to take them off the list. Couldn’t get it done. So into the spam black hole for them.

4. Learn how to use filters. All e-mail programs I have used over the past 3 years have filters. Both internet based clients and desktop clients. These can help you sort label and even respond and forward. They really can save you a lot of time . gmail filter help

5. This is some advice I need to take to heart more. You really should only look at and respond to e-mail a couple of times a day. And only deal with one e-mail at a time. Some times things will work themselves out if you just give it a little time.

5.5 if you are in business, especially for yourself, you need to get a smart phone that you can read and respond to e-mail when you don’t have a computer. I know this sounds contradictory. I would say it is most useful when you think of something and need to send the message before you forget and two weeks later think I should have sent that two weeks ago.

While this list really isn’t complete It’s a basic start for making your life easier by doing these simple things.