On The Sorting Of E-mail

One of the more fascinating outcomes of my now near- imminent change in job roles is the fact that my e-mail has dropped to a trickle.

E-mail in the work environment is a funny thing.  I remember back when I first started in the industry in the mid-90's and got my first work e-mail account (on Lotus Notes, if your memory goes back that far).  It was so exciting to get those rare e-mails:  I was in!  I was in the loop!  I was cool!

And then, 20+ years of the paperless office...

By my most recent count prior to the arrival of my replacement, I was receiving 100 to 150 e-mails a day:  some that I needed to act on, a great many that people felt like I needed to be in the know (that is the great issue with e-mail:  just by adding one to a list people feel that they have informed you of the event whereas for those that receive it, it becomes just one more of many), a number of notifications (because everything electronic now notifies you of every time a change is made), and then those that were just advertisements and recruiters trying to get lucky by reaching out directly to you (as if somehow, as a manager with an HR structure in place, I could have just magically broken out of the system and called them to make a hire).  It was, frankly, rather stupid.

By contrast, I am perhaps receiving 20 to 30 e-mails a day now, perhaps 5 of which I need to act on.

As part of my transition, I am going through and filing the e-mails to that I can have the information readily available in case my replacement or former coworkers ask for it.  It is a bit of a task:   I had 68,845 e-mails in my inbox that were not categorized and I am barely to 25% of those being appropriately filed (It is a bit of a project that will now run well over my transfer). It has also been an interesting task because, much like layers in an archaeological dig, there is a rhythm and flow to the e-mails:  you can see the projects start to appear, then become of major importance and activity, and then slowly die down until they disappear - or working backwards from more recent e-mails, you follow the chain back to the original item or e-mail that started everything. 

I have never had this kind of record of my work life to review before.

The surprising thing to me has been how much I remember about them - not that I specifically remember them, but as I am reading through the e-mails how I felt about them and the situation at the time comes back to me with a surprising sense of emotion.  It is not that I had forgotten about them - which surprises me, I thought I had - as much as they were just buried beneath new layers of items needing attention.  Everything was still there, just ready to be stirred up.

I have no idea how many e-mails my new career will entail - probably more than I want or need, frankly - but I am not going to make the same mistake twice, of course:  everything gets at least assigned as soon as it comes in, and everything gets filed at that end of the day.

And, of course, no more signing up for newsletters or advertisements.  Recruiters, you have to find your inroad elsewhere.