I just spend the entire month of May documenting all of my internal and external communication just to see how cluttered my life is....


Ok, so not all of it, but I did look at all my snail mail, one email account and my cell phone. Just logging the information was absolutely exhausting. I can't imagine what it would have been like to run a true exercise with my two other email accounts and my land line. The exercise also got me thinking about display, TV and radio. But I guess I am not that obsessive-compulsive.
As it turned out, I sent and received a total of 2,539 pieces of communication within these channels. Now for the real math:
*
15% of all of my communication was email spam
*
25% of my snail mail was junk mail
*
27% of my snail mail was direct mail that I deemed "relevant," as it pertained to something I had requested
*
Only .2% of all of my communication was personal snail mail (hey Mom, remember me?)
*
If I were to spend 10 minutes on each and every communication, I would have spent 17 days doing so.
Take this for what it is worth.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

www.saraholoubek.com
Sara Holoubek is a free agent consultant, advising growth firms and investors in the interactive technology and advertising sector. Ms. Holoubek is also the contributing editor of the DM News' SearchBuzz newsletter, and a regular author of the DM News Optimized column.

In 2008 Ms. Holoubek was elected to the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) board of directors for a third term. During this time she also co-founded the SEMPO NY Working Group.

From 2003-2005, Ms. Holoubek served as iCrossing's Chief Strategy Officer, building the firm's New York office and repositioning the iCrossing brand as it raised an early VC round of $13 million. Prior to this experience, Ms. Holoubek held posts in client strategy with interactive agencies Organic and Blue Dingo. Her vertical expertise covers over 10 sectors and includes work with Levi Strauss & Co, Bloomingdales, LexisNexis, Texas Instruments, Colgate-Palmolive, Century 21 Real Estate, Martha Stewart Omnimedia, as well as firms within the WPP family and the Aegis Group family.

Ms. Holoubek has contributed to and/or been quoted in publications such as Adweek, DM News, Mediapost's Search Insider, WSJ.com, The Madison Avenue Journal, ClickZ and Internet Retailer. She also serves as a frequent guest lecturer at venues such as SMX, Search Engine Strategies, OMMA, the DMA, Harvard, NYU and Baruch College.

Ms. Holoubek also brings an international perspective to her work, having lived and worked in Latin America and Europe , and is fluent in Spanish and French and conversant in Portuguese. She holds a B.A. from the University of Iowa and an M.B.A. from HEC in France. She resides in New York City with her husband, baritone Claudio Mascarenhas.