Something that web workers deal with throughout the day but don’t spend a lot of time talking about is the deluge of e-mail alerts, updates, and notifications that batter us like a cacophonous rain of data throughout the day, much of it due to the social media web sites that keep a modern web worker dialed in and informed.

Twimailer is a new service that aims to provide a lot more value to Twitter email alerts by putting Twitter profile data right into the alert email itself. This is something that could save web workers the time and effort of having to go to Twitter to check out the user’s details, so is certainly worth checking out.

Twitter alerts are notorious email-cloggers. They are both time consuming to churn through and not all that useful. In essence, each time a Twitter friend request arrives in your email inbox, it forces you to:

• Figure out if the Twitter username is meaningful.

Usually it isn’t, except sometimes you can suss out that usernames like “x9scjceffff” and “WebCamGirl899″ are spam accounts.

• Click through to the Twitter profile page.

Note that, at this point, we’ve looked at the e-mail subject line, clicked through to the e-mail detail page, and clicked through to the Twitter profile page to figure out if the person is someone worthy of following back.

• Let the investigation begin.

This is where a quick investigation usually takes place, that gets honed down to an instant over time. The number of friends and followers, the Twitter profile bio, the homepage, and, most importantly, a sense of what the person is tweeting about usually tells us if this is a person that we’d like to follow. And, if they get the thumbs up, we pull the trigger by clicking the “Follow” link.

Going through that process many times each day can be downright draining (and don’t forget cleaning up your e-mail afterwards as well!), so Twimailer has the potential to vastly cut down on Twitter e-mail alert management each day.

Getting started with Twimailer is fairly simple. You simply provide your email address and click a link in a verification email, which provides you with a twimailer.com email address. You then need to change your email address on your Twitter profile to the twimailer.com address, and then wait for your new-look alert emails to start being sent to you.

All of the elements that I mentioned as part of the “investigation” above – number of friends and followers, Twitter profile bio, homepage and recent tweets – are provided by the service. And the clincher is that there’s a nice big “Follow Back” link at the bottom of the email that lets you pull the trigger on following the profile, directly from your email.  I believe the removal of the nuisance of clicking through to the Twitter profile (and then clicking “Follow” in cases where you want to follow back) alone makes this service worthwhile.

One potential concern with any service that you route email through, of course, is security. Chris Messina provides a primer on How to use Twimailer securely by using email filtering techniques to send the Twitter alerts directly to the Twimailer email address (via NerdAbout).

A check-in with Twitter search shows that many people are already finding Twimailer useful:

thattalldude: Clicked the email addy box on #twimailer, and a dropdown with 7 different emails popped up. Sadly, that isn’t all of my email addys.

DAMN_itscoming: #Twimailer is another gem we found very helpful for managing tweets, www.twimailer.com

Though a few people are having trouble receiving notifications.

johanhal: @arnteriksen I like the idea, but for some reason only about 1 outta 3 emails from Twitter gets picked up so far #Twimailer

How do you handle the influx of email alerts from social media web sites?

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We all have our own preferences when it comes to communicating with others. I prefer email for general communication, instant messaging for answering quick questions, and my land line for long, personal conversations.

But not all people understand this – especially if they aren’t web workers. In fact, before I had a system in place, I felt like a doctor who was on call 24 hours a day. The good news is that there are some things we can do to get people to reach us through the channels we prefer.

Don’t provide excuses for others. When others are intruding on your working hours, it’s important that you don’t excuse them for it. “Yes, it’s perfectly alright that you called while I’m in the middle of work, after all, it’s normal for you to assume I’m not busy because I’m home all the time.” In a way, that’s what you’re saying when you allow others to interrupt you during what should be sacred working time.

Set barriers in place. Answering machines, voice mail, and virtual assistants prove to be effective barriers during the time you should be working. They can be used to filter incoming communication, allowing you to schedule return calls according to your needs.

Since my cellphone is used for non-urgent personal communication, so I usually leave it on silent mode unless I’m expecting to meet up with friends or family. This allows me to work during the day without being distracted by forwarded text messages or friends who only want to ask “What’s up?” I only respond to these messages when I’m done with work.

Another barrier you could use is to set up a schedule. I have someone who responds to urgent customer support, but clients who want to discuss something with me directly will have to wait a couple of hours for a scheduled chat. This prevents overeager clients from eating up all your work hours with customer service alone. Don’t get me wrong – you need to be there when your clients need you. But how can you do the work you’re paid to do if you spend most of your waking hours talking about the work rather than doing it?

Have separate channels for work and your personal life. Since most of my clients are from different continents, I tend to communicate with them mostly via a work email address, Skype, and instant messaging. My cellphone and land line are for family and friends only, making it easier to avoid personal calls when I want to work.

Some people even have two different phones for business and personal use. Having separate channels is useful because when it’s time for business, you can shut down your personal lines to prevent unnecessary interruptions. Conversely, if you’re having dinner with friends, you don’t want to pick up a business call in the middle of the meal.

Encourage compliance. My mother used to be a heavy email forwarder. She would send me several chain letters and PowerPoint presentations daily, making me waste over an hour each week selecting and deleting her emails. As an Inbox Zero practitioner, this annoyed me. Instead of accepting my situation as it is, I told her (tactfully, of course) how her mindless forwarding made me feel. She doesn’t send those messages anymore.

Tim Ferriss has another approach when it comes to email. He recommends checking your email only twice a day and setting up an autoresponder that tells people your email-checking schedule, estimated time/day of reply, and how to reach you for emergencies. For him, this prevents you from receiving those “Did you get my email?” messages.

If you implement your communication channels well, your friends, family, and colleagues will have no choice but to stick to it. My relatives seem to have given up randomly calling me during the day, and my friends don’t expect me to respond to their text messages immediately.

Don’t forget to adjust to others yourself. Of course, when you’re the recipient of messages and phone calls, people must respect your system. Keep in mind that other people out there have their own systems that you should follow if you want to contact them.

Do you have a streamlined way of receiving communication from others? Has it worked for you? What are the challenges of being available 24/7 via multiple channels such as email, blogs, and mobile phones?

Image by Per Hardestam from sxc.hu

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