Progress will be made
I decided yesterday to set myself the goal for this weekend of completely emptying my email inbox. I haven’t cleared my inbox to zero for months, maybe years, maybe as long as I’ve had the account. Generally I leave emails in my inbox when they contain something I need to deal with but don’t feel like doing right now. There they fester, reminding me several times a day of all the things I *should* be doing, but not resulting in the accomplishment of much actual work.
I try to clear out emails as they come in, dealing with simple or urgent stuff and deleting the rest, but over time the to-do-later category starts to fill up. I realize that this is far from the ideal way to Get Things Done. While it keeps certain tasks I might otherwise neglect from falling through the cracks, it also contributes to the constant low-level stress of having a long to-do list hanging over my head, pinging me in the face every few hours. Most of the things in my inbox aren’t even that important, it’s just that they came into my life through email, so that’s where they’ll stay until I “find the time” to print the page or set up the account or whatever.
This morning there were 21 messages in my inbox. It’s been worse—a couple weeks ago, before the semester ended, the total was around 60. I will chronicle my progress here, at some level of detail to be determined by my patience and the point at which I decide that the minutiae of my metaphorical housekeeping couldn’t possibly get any less interesting.
I’ve already dispatched the first few: I replied to the writer of that women-in-science book (I asked for a pseudonym), withdrew my application for an on-campus job for next semester (and deleted two related emails), decided I didn’t need to hang on to this week’s trivia questions from Ken Jennings, and deleted another email to which I’d only been pretending I’d ever respond. Down to 15, yeehaw!
It’s past my bedtime (I’d hardly be able to keep my eyes open if it weren’t for a three-hour nap I had earlier), so I’ll save the rest for tomorrow. It’s hard to say how long the whole process will take—some of the emails can be taken care of in under five minutes, while others are placeholders to remind me of larger projects on my plate, like “come up with a degree plan” and “set up a system with which to monitor my finances.”
It’s supposed to rain all weekend anyway, so it’s not like I’ll be tempted to go anywhere. Well, okay, I will, but probably no farther than the yummy-chocolate-things store. Updates to follow.
Tags: miscellany
May 27th, 2007 at 8:15 am
i was going to reply here (and look! I am) but i’ll just send it in an email