This is what a counselor once called it as I expressed my frustrations about my overflowing inbox. It is an inconvenient convenience. Technology at its best and worst.
Tonight I chipped away at it some more and got it down to 99 messages. Only 18 unread. This feels like a great victory. In the last week at one point I had over 60 unread messages and almost 200 total...which is down from almost 700 when I first started this project a couple months ago.
It takes way too much time away from the more important things in life. I've been thinking long and hard about how to downscale this stress. I definitely need to unsubscribe from more newsletters, which I am doing as I get the chance. But there's so much more to it than that.
In the past people must have been on the phone all the time! It does seem like email is a faster way to coordinate schedules, notify about events, confirm appointments and orders. But email is always calling. If I've been away from it for an hour I can know that somebody somewhere is waiting for an answer. Or that an answer I've been waiting for has arrived. The irony of checking it that often is that the more often I write, the quicker the replies come and it is definitely a problem that feeds itself. The problem only got worse when I decided my time spent nursing Kai was a great way to "catch up" on email.
With the extent of my life that seems to take place online, even my groceries are more easily obtained that way... there's always an excuse for each email. I have wanted someone else to go through my inbox with me and say "you don't need that one!" but I am sure I would be so defensive. I agree I could delete forwards but can't bring myself to do it. What's wrong with a laugh now and then? But what if I didn't know how to use the strongest point in my body to ward off an attacker? And so on and so on.
I would love to get some comments back on this one. What does everyone else do to prevent email from taking over their lives?
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3 comments:
That's easy! If you check your email less often, you will start to get less emails! Trust me, once people realize email isn't the best way to get in touch with you, they will email less often. If it's really important, they will call and ask you whatever it is they need to know. Take it from me, the sister that's terrible at email! Reading your dilemma makes me thankful that I don't have that problem. I don't want the internet to be a big part of my life. There is already so much else that fills up my days.
Thanks Rach! There is definitely room for checking less often. Unfortunately I do have to check very regularly - if I want to get in on babysitting opps through my co-op, grocery splits for my buying club, play dates for my moms club, time and location changes for small groups, etc.... The world takes place online whether I'm a part of it or not. But, I do think I need to check less often :) Thanks for writing!
I have two different e-mails, my hotmail, which is the e-mail I give "most people" and businesses, and my gmail, which is only for family, close friends, and important things. Whenever I write my e-mail down for anything, I consider which address would be best. I check my gmail daily, and my hotmail maybe every couple days. I end up deleting most items from my hotmail anyway. It is tough though!
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