The Abandoning of E-mail

I am giving serious consideration to abandoning e-mail.

I looked at my e-mail in-box over the course of this week and realized that I had over 400 unopened e-mails.  That seems like a great deal - I mean, I was conscious of the fact that the amount had been growing but it was leaping up exponentially.  So  I decided to take a look.

My e-mail box was even more of a disaster.  I do not know how many e-mails I have in my box at this point but I would estimate it is easily close to a thousand.  Trying to locate a specific one is the proverbial needle in the haystack procedure.

How did they all build up?  The best of intentions, of course.  The exponential growth in e-mails was due to my habit of signing up for lists - "Oh, that sounds interesting.  Let's sign up for that - after all, it is just e-mail.   It will not take up very much room".  Likewise the growth in my in-box was due to my habit of saving things "to get to later":  "That is an interesting quote.  I cannot write it down now - let me save it for later"  or "I need to respond to that.  I cannot do it now - let me save it for later."

You are seeing a trend,  I hope:  It does not take up much space and I will do it later.  As sadly true in the rest of my life as it is true in my electronic life.

I went through and deleted a great number or earmarked others for action - in a couple of cases I simple unsubscribed.  Well and good.  But as did this it was with the unconscious thought that this is only a temporary solution:  the avalanche will be back, given one or two days of non-attentiveness.

Which brought up the next thought:  what if I just sought to reduce my e-mail presence completely.

What are the legitimate uses of e-mail in my life?  Occasional contacts from friends and family.  E-mail transfers from home to work (although a thumb drive works as well).  And information - scads of information that I thought was important at one time but now threatens to bury me beneath a rigorous program of dealing with it because I hate the thought of deleting it lest I lose some minor critical item.

What if I significantly scaled back my e-mail presence?  What if I vigorously reviewed every list I am on, every newsletter I receive for actual use and purpose in my life?  My suspicion is that I would see a significant lessening of the daily and weekly e-mails I received - perhaps to the point that I could actually use the ones I have.

Because, oddly enough, 20 years ago most of us had heard of e-mail but it was the stuff of legend and technology, a mystical thing that appeared as if a pronouncement from Mt. Olympus  - and most of us survived.  And still talked to our friends.  And still got things done.  It was not what it has become now, an almost mindless exchange of everything that takes no time for someone else to send but valuable time for us to even evaulate if it is important.

I may not completely divorce myself from the medium, but it has certainly reached the point where it is no longer adding significant value in my life.   And our lives, being so short, should be filled as much as possible with things of significant value.