This was originally going to be part of my How XML (RSS, Atom) feeds will change your life post, but I decided to curtail that article to a more merciful length.
If you need further introduction, please see that article first. To cut straight to the point, I find that XML feeds are an excellent way to declutter your email inbox by removing emails that are not personal (not authored with the intent of you being the sole recipient). Items that typically fall into this category are forwards you get from your friends, family "newsletters" and other email lists you may have joined.
You may want to read these emails; you just may not want to be bothered with them when you are trying to focus on the job at hand. Save these for when you have time to kill. (I like to read my feeds in the morning in lieu of a newspaper.)
You have a variety of options when it comes to transforming your time/space wasting emails into XML feeds. One of the simplest is a free service called Mailbucket. It requires no signup. Just have your mail client forward your nuisance messages to anybox@mailbucket.org and you'll find them in feed form at http://www.mailbucket.org/anybox.xml. For example, feel free to SPAM me at jhawkesistechhead@mailbucket.org and see your offensive message at
A nearly identical service is dodgit.com. Along the same lines jhawkesistechhead@dodgit.com ends up at http://dodgit.com/run/rss?mailbox=jhawkesistechhead. However, Mailbucket messages seem to get there much faster.
If you use Bloglines as your feed reader, you can setup an email subscription. Bloglines will create for you a "disposable" email address for subscribing to email lists (or forwarding your forwards to).
However, I prefer Google Reader to Bloglines. Good news for Google fans; you can still use an "all Google" solution. Log into Blogger and create a blog for your impersonal messages. Then look under Settings and Email for your Mail-to-Blogger Address. Forward your messages here.
If you use an newsreader that supports Atom 0.3, SSL/HTTPS, and HTTP authentication (here's a list), then you can setup Labels in your GMail and read new messages under those labels directly from your feed reader. However, I find this less than useful since it only displays new messages and (oddly enough) doesn't work with Google Reader at this time.
