Inbox and select Folders

Someday I hope to keep my email inbox to one page or less, I think that's about 25 emails. I think I have a handful of weeks when that happened. Here is my dilemma. I have a few minutes where I want to clear my head, or the kids allow me, or I steal from my sleep allowance. I have time to read, but not think through a response, or just think it through. I leave the email in the inbox, hoping that I will have time to deal with it later. Since later is inevitably the same as the time in which I checked, the email sits.

Sometimes I file them, thinking that I can look at them later if I want to but I usually don't, I've forgotten they existed. I have many folders optimistically waiting to help me organize and clarify. They help me organize and possibly clarify, but definitely do not help me do anything else with them, e.g. take action, respond, etc. I even have a "Needs Attention" folder, which I'm afraid to look in.

Yesterday and today I felt this frantic urge to clear things out when I opened my email and saw all these Things that I should have done something with or about. My approach was disjointed, tackle a few in the inbox that might still be relevant or meaningful, and a few old ones that I hadn't looked at in possibly years, in the folders. I'd missed the boat on many (of the 126) in the inbox, but was able to respond to a couple and delete some, and get the inbox total to 65.

The folders were interesting, I suppose. I went through 2 of them, one was called "online reciepts" and the other was a folder with project information for an interesting and very involved project in college. Both brought up emotions, which is probably why I avoid weeding through these things, I don't really feel I have time to reflect and process feelings. Much easier it seems to avoid them or stuff them down.

I'd forgotten so much of what was in there. For the online receipts I wondered if I'd ever received some of the stuff I'd paid for, I remembered neither buying nor receiving some things. For the project, I wondered how I'd ever kept track of so much going on when nowadays I can hardly get together a grocery list, or remember what's happening on the weekend. I read emails that I wouldn't have recognized as mine if I were shown them by someone else. I also wondered if I'd really been managing all my responsibility well at that time; maybe that's why some people from that time don't keep in touch. *sigh*

There's a quote from Maya Angelou that I can't find exactly, but it goes something like this: if I'd known better I would have done better, and when I knew better, I did.

How do others manage things like emails, doing and keeping track of what they ask of you, and remembering?