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02-09-2018 
I try to be a good person. But sometimes I wonder what kind of monster I am. I pride myself on keeping a clean and tidy house (except for my office, which gets a pass because its purpose is to be a cauldron bubbling over with projects and activity). And then the reality of this baby pops up and smacks me in the face... I have triple-digits worth of unread e-mails! This isn't even my business e-mail account. THIS TIME... IT'S PERSONAL!! So many questions creep into my head. Who are these people I'm not responding to? What buried treasure lies within? I know I'm awesome at deleting and blocking spam and BS marketing e-mails. I'm a fucking ninja when it comes to that. So these messages have to contain at least semi-legit content, and not solicitations from "horny Russian babes," who *humblebrag* are totally into me. I get like, an e-mail basically every other day from one, and they're so excited they don't even bother to take time to spell-check. Also, am I alone in neglecting my e-mails? Everyone is busy and has friends and probably shoots quick thoughts and reminders to themselves from their work accounts, right? Right? We're gonna have to categorize this mess. Are these notes to myself? Correspondence from friends and family? Newsletters I intended to read, but never did? Let's go to a tale of the tape so we can quantify this mess and break it on down. First thing I want to do is break this down chronologically. And in doing so, I realize Outlook's count includes all of the multiple responses to the same thread. This dries up one bead of sweat on my brow, as the total number of e-mails lacking my attention now drops to 91. Much better!
Man, there is some oooooold shit in there! So, yo, what are the origin of these untapped messages?
Looks like it's time for some explanations and apologies. Sorry friends. Sorry family. Sorry Tony. Nah, I'll dial the apologies back a little. The 46 messages from friends and fam span 15 different people. And I do keep old e-mails as "new" often times after I read them so I can follow-up on specific points. I'm sure some or most (cringe, fingers crossed) of these points were followed up in on subsequent e-mails anyway. But anyway, here is how I'll justify my neglect: Four of these have lenghty photo gallery attachments, which I am bad at looking at. It's easier to look at pictures on Facebook, I guess. Four of these were regarding plans for two different trips with friends - one taken (in 2014), one scrapped (from 2016). The newsletter backlog is troubling. I have a friend who writes dense psychological text in a series that I want to focus on and absorb if I'm gonna read it. It's a challenge make myself to lock in on something instead of jumping from tab to tab. For instance, right now I have 17(!!!) fucking browser tabs open! That doesn't even include this Notepad/HTML doc, a Word doc, and three Excel spreadsheets. Tony - what the fuck?! You'll never get anything accomplished like that. For funsies, I was really psyched to see what the fantasy football trade offer (from 2012) entailed. Turns out, nothing special: I was offered LeGarrette Blount and a 7th round pick for my 2nd round pick. Wonder if I took it? The 8-ball from companies/orgnizations are almost all relevant and current. One was for a statement for my trusty Discover card that (don't worry) I've already paid, but others are hotel confirmations, replacement parts for my stupid dead treadmill, Xfinity telling me to upgrade my modem, the Cubs telling me what new apparel I need, and a couple more of that ilk. They're all legit pieces of information that I may have to reference going forward and earn their "new" status. The e-mails I shot off to myself from a variety of other places (work, while traveling, or from the same home e-mail) are a variety of junk...mostly reminders of things to do, watch, read, or write. It's not bad enough that I have 100s of scraps of paper with writing and joke ideas; now they're invading my inbox too. I'm such a nutcase. Some of these are completely unintelligible! Ultimately, I wanted to learn something from this exercise. I feel like a bad person if my responses to friends and family are slipping, but I think I do a good job of frequently communicating via e-mail and text. If anything, this is a reminder of how busy life can be. Sometimes it's good to stop and soak in that movie or read that article on Steve Carell... or e-mail your grandma back! Have fun! -T |
Inside My Brain