E-mail Bankruptcy

I have worked out of my home office for almost a dozen years. In between telephone calls, faxes and e-mails, I sometimes run a load of wash or fill the bird feeders in the back yard. There’s a freedom to working from home that being stuck in a cubicle—or a beautiful corner office—just doesn’t allow.While you just can’t beat the commute time, sometimes it does get lonely. There are days when the only conversation I have with other living beings is the talks I have with my two cats. And while they usually agree with me on most things, there are times when I’d like more stimulating fare.I rely a lot on e-mail to do my work from home. Most of my “conversations” have been e-mails to business associates, family and friends. I regularly get about 100 e-mails in a day not including the SPAM: press releases, questions from advertisers and employees, queries from freelance writers, etc.But in December I made a vow to make 2008 the year when I spent more time talking to people on the phone than I spent communicating in e-mails. I had pages of answered and unanswered e-mails sitting in my in box, and Outlook was programmed to check for new messages every 15 minutes. I thought I needed to be immediately available. Those e-mails would sit there, waiting for me to “get around” to them, and then suddenly I would have 10 more! It felt like hundreds of jobs that needed to be done—immediately—so I constantly felt overwhelmed. I was a slave to Outlook.Then one day, I made a decision to delete the messages in my in box. I highlighted every single e-mail in my in box, took a deep breath and pushed the delete button. I sat looking at my empty in box feeling half jubilant, half horrified. But I also I felt a surge of relief, a lifting of a burden. Suddenly, in one single moment, I had caught up with all my work!I waited anxiously the next week or so for the angry fallout: “Why didn’t you answer my e-mail?” But it was strange. I didn’t get a single e-mail or telephone call asking why I hadn’t responded. No fallout. No business left undone. Amazing!Now I check my e-mail just twice a day: once in the morning and once in the afternoon. At the end of the day, my in box is empty. The accomplishment I feel from looking at that empty in box at the end of each day is incredibly liberating.If you feel overwhelmed by your e-mail and haven’t yet filed for “e-mail bankruptcy,” I urge you to give it a try. Try using e-mail as a tool instead of a taskmaster!Barbara Lanz-MateoPublisherCoastal Womanbarbara@coastalwoman.com