I'm simply not busy/important (enough) to have unanswered emails

When my dad has a lot to do, he'll start by making a list. And that list will certainly include "make list," enabling him to start by crossing an item off of his list. A consummate list-maker myself (if I have 15 minutes to go to the bathroom, check my email, listen to voicemail, and play a sudoku, I'll make a list), my room at times looks like the shed in A Beautiful Mind because of all of the post-it lists. Tonight, my list included, among other inanity, "emails" and "blog." So instead of crossing both off (it's way past my bedtime), I'll post about emails.

Over the course of college, I became an accomplished emailer. I once had two people on the same day tell me that emailing with me is like instant messaging. I sent approximately 1,500-2,000 emails per month, and had a rule that I would respond to emails within 24 hours. While my inbox was usually in the hundreds or thousands, time sensitive emails or emails that required some sort of response would, by fiat, be responded to.

That ability and discipline have dissipated in my post-college world. My college tactics no longer work. Because I read the vast majority of my emails during the day, but feel pressure to wait until after work (for some mixture of professionalism and guilt about spending tax-payer dollars to maintain my social life), I have sucked what I needed out of many emails without offering that same opportunity to their source. Further, having sat for an unreasonable 8-9.5 hours in front of a computer in Rockville, it's difficult and disheartening to come home for an encore, personal or not.

At the same time, my size 430 inbox is niggling at me, and it's hard fully to check out at night, knowing that there are potential connections to make, things to say, and responses to solicit. I often plan on answering a core two seriously guilty emails, but then don't touch any as I throw the baby out with the bath water and crash ceremoniously into bed (can one crash into bed?) without brushing my teeth, as if to convince myself that it's OK I didn't email since I couldn't even brush my teeth, far more important.

I'm thus conducting a paradigm shift by writing this post. Unanswered emails are no longer acceptable, and neither is spending serious time at night answering emails. I will pulverize my inbox by going to sleep each night with 20 emails fewer than the previous day. I will respond to emails briefly, archive those that I don't ever intend to answer, and overall raise the threshold for response. If a response is optional and it's not going to make my top 20 for the night, then it should be archived, or placed under a pending label, never to be seen again. This plan will obviously fail, but I'm hoping that it will fail productively. I once told myself that I was not allowed to run for Hillel Steering Committee unless I reduced my approximately size 500 inbox to 0, and plummet it did.

Why such guilt? And why such pleasure at the receipt of an email? I continue to value email communication, and wait for others to email me, so I am turning over a new leaf, or should I say, composing a new thread, and unstressfully becoming on top of my emails. I thrive on this form of communication, and find the actual act of composing and reading emails relaxing, satisfying, and enjoyable. Although this endeavor will be a struggle (unless I figure out how to make gmail work in pine, in which case it would be a pleasure), it is worth it. I will post a screen shot of my empty inbox in 22 days time, so let's say by 12/31.