Scattershot article about how the way we deal with our e-mail is reflective of our lives.
Ah … yeah.
Take a clear-eyed look at how you answer or file each email. Notice what you choose to keep or delete. Consider your anxiety when your inbox is jammed with unanswered messages. The makeup and tidiness of your inbox is a reflection of your habits, your mental health and, yes, even the way Mom and Dad raised you.
“If you keep your inbox full rather than empty, it may mean you keep your life cluttered in other ways,” says psychologist Dave Greenfield, who founded the Center for Internet Behavior in West Hartford, Conn. “Do you cling to the past? Do you have a lot of unfinished business in your life?”
On the other hand, if you obsessively clean your inbox every 10 minutes, you may be so quick to move on that you miss opportunities and ignore nuances. Or your compulsion for order may be sapping your energy from other endeavors, such as your family.
Alas, most of the “bad” traits listed, even the contradictory ones, are reflective of my e-life, from hoarding every e-mail (in case I need to reference it some time in the future) to compulsive folder assignment to inability to clean things out periodically to being wracked with guilt when I don’t get back to correspondents.
There are, indeed, times when I’m tempted just to chuck the whole darned thing. 🙂
(via GeekPress)