How did email become such a burden?  I remember the first time I was able to email hundreds of people at one time with information that I had before had to print, proof, fold, insert, address, post, and mail.  And the first time I was able to send an attachment to several folks for review.  When before we had done these round-robin mailings where folks would make their comments, and mail it on to the next recepient.  And likely, it never made its way around and would have to wait until folks got together in person.  Email is a beautiful thing.

And yet, I struggle with David Allen’s GTD strategy of emptying my email box daily.  When I move items to folders before they are done, I forget about them.  And it does not seem productive to have a folder called Stuff To Do.  Sometimes I print them out and make a stack in my physical inbox so that I can move them out of my email inbox but that seems counter-intuitive, like handling a piece of paper one too many times.  And then there is my volleyball strategy.  It is where I basically throw the email back over the net to the person that sent it without really dealing with the issue at hand, by continuing to ask questions, or further delineate, or sometimes to even ask them to call me.  (I want to apologize to you personally right now if you see yourself in any of my email responses, and, if you do, feel free to email me about it.)

I have 79 emails in my email inbox right now.  I plowed through a ton of them today which led me to thinking about this blog post.  And still I have 79.  The oldest one is dated Jan. 31, 2010.  It is a welcome email to compete.com that I have not visited since I signed up.  I have flight info for trips I have yet to take.  There are many emails about BEA events and the SIBA Book Awards, SIBA Trade Show Info, and Google reminders.  And all of these things are important to me.  Proof of their importance is that they are still in my inbox.  But at the same time, they are still in my inbox.  Tomorrow, it is my goal to empty my email inbox.  Wish me well.