Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better, Third Edition

Hack 7: Future-Proof Your Email Address

Level Easy

Platform All

Cost Free

Over the years, you’ve probably employed as many email addresses as pairs of socks, but you don’t want to change them as often. Switching your primary email address can be a big inconvenience that leads to missed messages and lost relationships. You give your email address to countless friends, relatives, and web services, and publish it on mailing lists, websites, and documents forever cached in search engine indexes. But if your email address is tied to a former ISP, the company you used to work for, the university you attended, or the embarrassing handle you chose in college, switching to a new address can become a necessity.

Don’ts

• Don’t use your company’s or school’s email address for personal use. Someday you will graduate or leave your current company, and you don’t want to leave your email messages behind. Certainly your company or school email address is appropriate to use for company and school correspondence, but as your primary individual address, not so much.
• Don’t use the address your ISP gave you. Remember how nice it was when you upgraded to broadband and RoadRunner gave you that free [e-mail] email account? Wrong! Someday you will live in another state and use another ISP, and that address won’t work anymore. Pass.

Do’s

• Use an address accessible from anywhere. More and more you use multiple computers at home, at work, and in public places. Make sure you can securely access ...