A few years ago, I was really fed up with all the spam I was receiving. I’m not sure how many emails I received in my inbox every single day, but it was a few hundred. It didn’t take a lot of time, but enough for me to get quite frustrated. The reason I got frustrated was that it happened every single day.

I’ve been using Spam Arrest for a few years now, and I’m receiving close to zero spam.

They have some awesome statistics. I’ve received more than 101.000 messages, and close to 54.000 of them have been classified as spam. Check the stats below.

More than 50% of all the emails I’ve received was classified as spam, no wonder I was frustrated when I had to delete hundreds of emails every single day.

Easy to set up

It’s easy to set up. Just add some information to your Spam Arrest account, and add the new Spam Arrest information to your email account. It takes a few minutes, and it starts working straight away.

How Spam Arrest works

You have one white list of people you want to receive emails from (like your contacts). You have one blacklist of people you don’t want to receive emails from. When people that’s not on either of the lists sends you an email, they’ll get a message in return, asking them to confirm their email address by entering a captcha (random letters and numbers). When they enter it, they’ll never get the message again, and all their new emails to you will be sent directly to your inbox. If they don’t enter the captcha, you won’t receive the email.

All the automated spam messages will be stopped. If a few people sends you messages that you don’t want to receive, you can still block them even though they’ve entered the captcha. Just add them to your blacklist.

The free trial

I tried the free trial of Spam Arrest more than 2 years ago. Since then I’ve been a loyal member, and I probably will be for many years a head. It’s a real time saver and they have awesome support.

A few months ago, I bought and read Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen, since then, I’ve bought Things, an awesome application, and now I’ve bought an interesting ebook called Todoodlist by Nick Cernis.

I’m not really having any problems when it comes to my to-do lists, at least not after I read GTD. The book was brilliant, and it thought me the stuff I’ve been missing when it comes to focus and how to remember all the things I was forgetting.

The reason I bought Todoodlist, was because of the subtitles.

“Technology is great. Pencils are better.”

“A simple book about falling in love with paper, simplifying your life, and following your dreams.”

As soon as I read this, I just had to have it.

As you can see, I’ve also printed the ebook (97 pages), because I love paper.

The ebook is funny, and it’s straight to the point. Everything you do with your computer, iPhone, or PDA, when it comes to to-do lists (and getting things done), you can do it with a pencil and paper.

I wasn’t sure before reading the book, but now I’m sure. Actually, at the moment, I’m not using Things or any other software, I’m using paper. It’s a lot more fun, and it’s a lot easier, and it works.

Nick Cernis presents five brilliant ideas about how pencil and paper should be used, and all the five ideas are awesome. I’ve never thought of using any of them, even though they are really easy to use. When I read them, I almost heard myself saying “Why didn’t I think of that.”

If you’re looking for a way to become more effective, and getting things done, you should start out with Todoodlist. It’s cheap, fast, and it will turn your life around.