Sound good? Maybe a little scary? You can read more about Merlin’s system over on his blog, 43 Folders.

Embedded below is a talk Merlin did recently at Google talking about Inbox Zero. The video is about an hour, but is chock full of great advice. And, the title of this post will become more clear when you watch the video.

Do you get too much (snail) mail? I do. If you would like to receive less mail, I’ve collected a few ways that can help you decrease the amount of postal mail you receive.

Unsolicited Mail

The Direct Marketing Association of America has set up a service that for $1, they will add your name and address to their “Mail Preference Service.” What does your $1 get you? The site claims that it “will substantially decrease the amount of national advertising mail you receive,” but “not all commercial mail will stop.” It does take a 30-90 days for this service to become effective, but it sounds like a good way to cut back on marketing messages being delivered to your home.

Catalogs

If you’re like me, you receive a number of catalogs in the mail every month. If you have conducted business with any of the catalogs you receive, the above DMA Mail Preference Service may not decrease the number of catalogs you receive.

To remove yourself from catalog mail lists, you’ll probably have to call the catalog company directly, as through my research, their doesn’t seem to be any quick, free way to do this online. To speed the process along, make sure that you have your customer number with you. Customer numbers are near the mailing address on the front or back of the catalog.

Services

I’ve found two services (41 Pounds and Green Dimes) that claim to do all the work for you. I’ve not used them, but using a service might be easier than what I’ve suggested.

Last, here are a couple links with more detailed information about how to shut off specific kinds of postal mail you might not want.

• How to Get Less Junk Mail – CPSR
• Do-it-yourself – Stop junk mail, email and phone calls

I’ve used a few of these techniques personally so I’ll report back as I start to see results. I’m curious to hear if about any other tips you might have. If you have other tips, please share them below.

photo by Flickr user Casey Serin

Speed up Mail.app (Mac OS X)
Hawk Wings describes a quick trick to slim down Mail.app’s SQLite database and getting a snappier email client as a result.

Send Gmail to your cell phone
Ben Murphy describes a great way to send email selectively to any cell phone (hopefully, your own). Not quite a Blackberry, but great for getting important messages on the go. [via Lifehacker]

Turn Gmail into your personal nerve center
Does anyone just use it for email anymore? Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion documents 5 ways to make Gmail the center of your productivity universe including:

1. How to turn Gmail into a massive personal database
2. How to get real-time news updates in Gmail (Gmail+ Google Talk + Twitter)
3. How to automatically store your bookmarks in Gmail (Gmail + del.icio.us + Yahoo Alerts)
4. How to manage Calendar and To-Dos in Gmail (Gmail + Backpack + GCal + GTalk + iMified)
5. How to blog from Gmail (Gmail + Wordpress/TypePad/Blogger + IMified)

Hope you had a great weekend. Now, get back to work! :-)