Of course, there is a limit to its benefits, neurotic sorting can have a devastating effect on a person’s life. On the other hand, I know very few people that are overly organized but not yet in need of professional help. Maybe the gap isn’t there and I’m just too blind to see the borderline cases.

As for commercial info via mail: I am signed up to several newsletters, some of them by choice, some because they come with some sort of other free service. Those others are immediately discarded by my email setup, the others land in my inbox just like normal, personal mail. Those are the ones with useful subjects, a nonidiotic format (plain text, correct encoding, useful From: and Reply-To: addresses etc etc). In essence, those are the mails that have a “considerate” feel about it. The links in them are easily copied and pasted, the text is well written and enjoyable to read.

Bottom line: make a mail enjoyable and interesting to read and it will not feel like spam. Oh, and only send mail to people who have expressly asked for it, but that goes without saying. The hard part is convincing eople like me that there is added benefit in getting those mails. And do it once a month, normally.