An Empty Inbox


I have recently realized how much serenity there is to be found in an empty email inbox.  It's not uncommon for my inbox at work to contain a hundred or more unread messages during busy times.  As of this moment, my main personal email account has twenty-nine unread messages and there are ten more in other secondary email accounts I keep.

Sometimes, I must confess, I only have time to deal with those that are nearest the top.  I have my email sorted in order of receipt, with the most recently received ones at the top. It's quite possible for some messages to get buried as the unread messages pile up. There is a direct correlation to how many unread email messages I have and my stress level.

A few weeks ago I managed to get all of my inboxes to the point where all messages fit on one page, and the only ones that were saved were ones that I needed to do something with immediately.  What a sense of being in control I felt!  Each morning when I logged on, I was able to deal with new items as they came in, I felt relaxed and able to cope with anything.

Alas, the serenity was fleeting and I am once again at the point of being in email jail.  What was life like before the terms email and inbox controlled our life?  I'm guessing it was less stressful.

8 comments:

Donna M. Kohlstrom said...

I'm a control freak and assign three times during the day to do email. I hate when there is a back up. I'm always clearing out my "sent" box and "trash".

Now my husband, on the other hand, is a saver. He can have over 100 saved and more in other boxes!! Every now and then he starts cleaning out. If I did that, I'd go crazy and feel overwhelmed by mail!!!

It's a good feeling to have an empty "in box"!

Joanne said...

I'm in Donna's club, managing the email daily. And imagine? The computer-age was supposed to SIMPLIFY our lives ;)

Terri Tiffany said...

LOL I have over 100 hanging in my box at all times. Husband deletes and sorts--I just can't quite do that yet:)

Karen said...

I have a few files where I "stuff" mail that I'm not ready to delete. My friends and I were discussing this not long ago. What's your comfort level with email? For me, I feel overwhelmed when my inbox goes beyond page one and I can't "see" all the mail. Another friend says she has pages and pages of inbox. That makes me shudder.

Kara said...

Oh my hotmail is a mess. Literally thousands of e-mails and I can't find the time to delete and sort through them all. I know I miss people's important messages this way. I've thought of just closing the account and starting over;)

Carmen said...

It's way too easy to contact people these days. It's good for businesses...but personally it can get overwhelming. What did people used to do when they couldn't reach someone in the past, I wonder?

The Unbreakable Child said...

Great post. I have three email accounts and it's a bit overwhelming, especially the one I keep forgetting about. I rarely delete an email, it just goes into folder. Waiting for that to crash. ; )

Pat's Place said...

I tend to collect e-mail and then suddenly I have an urge to purge. About the time I delete a bunch of things I discover that I deleted something really important--oh well!