September 2005 Archives

A quick check of my POP3 inbox reveals 175 unresponded and unread emails dating back to November last year. If I look at my Gmail account, I see 754 unread messages.

I don't think they'll be read any time soon. I'm fighting a losing battle against email. The more I lose control of it, the less inclined I am to even check it any more -- the sheer volume of mail is a cue for me to lunge for the 'close' button.

Sure, I pick my email over every week or so, looking for anything especially urgent or relevant or interesting. But I put it aside to respond to later. Like when my inbox is tidy again. And I hurry, and miss things. So the conclusion is inescapable: right now, and for the last couple of months at least, email is not an effective way to reach me and get a response.

The correct action to take in response to this situation is fairly obvious -- clean out my inboxes. Read or delete everything. Respond to the emails that need a reply. File everything neatly. Regain control. And if I had 12 spare consecutive hours with which to do so, I could do this, and would find peace once more in the feng shui of a tidy set of mail folders and an uncluttered, airy inbox. But the only practical way is to approach the problem a little at a time, aiming to go forward faster than the constant deluge of incoming traffic drags me backward.

The famous computer scientist Don Knuth abandoned email entirely in 1990, to the bemusement of his contemporaries. He tired of email before spam was a problem and when the internet was a millionth of its present size. Now it's 15 years later and some of us are starting to see his point.

I'm not going to stop using email, because unlike Knuth I still see the value in it, and also unlike Knuth, I don't have a personal secretary to handle my eBay invoices for me and print out correspondence I get from friends. But it is going to take me some time to sift through the backlog. I just unsubscribed from a few high-volume mailing lists. I'll miss reading them but I need my inbox back. And I'm getting started now on reducing the mess. Please don't stop emailing me, but don't anticipate a fast turnaround just yet; I have some work to do before email is useful again.

I'm beginning to suspect that I'm not the most committed of bloggers.

P.S. The typography nerd in me really likes the look of the new Guardian.