Overload

Jessie: Still surrounded by snowbanks

It feels to me like I’ve spent the last few weeks awash in email. Every day I make a to do list and it seems as though half the items on it are emails that need answering. That doesn’t take into account all the emails that simply require discarding. Or the email trash bin that needs dumping. Or the unsubscribing from junk email lists.

By the time I’ve waded through it all I feel ready to leave my desk for the day. Which doesn’t result in a great deal of creative output.  So, I’ve started  seriously thinking about strategies for managing it all. Every month I pick a new skill or habit to work on and for the month of April I’ve decided to tackle the email monster. I’ve mulled and pondered and considered many options.  What I’ve come up with is the idea of scheduling  regular deliveries.

It used to be that the post was delivered no more than twice a day. As much as I might like to think otherwise, I’m not nearly important enough to need to be constantly available to whomever needs to reach me. Twice a day post would have been more than sufficient. Is there really any reason email should be different?  Not for me there isn’t.

It isn’t going to be easy and I don’t expect to succeed right away, but I’m going to try to reduce my email checks to three or four times a day. It may take me longer to respond than senders would prefer but I think it will increase my creative output and leave me feeling accomplished at the end of the day rather than like I’ve simply been putting out fires that had no business flaring up in the first place.

Readers, do you have a any suggestions for how to deal with email?