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Welcome to my everyday
For anybody else who’s been in Inbox Hell…this may help.
1. Forgive yourself. I know it’s hard. But keep reminding yourself that you can only do as much brain work as your brain can do.
2. Set a time or space limit, such as 10 or 15 minutes on a timer or from the top to the bottom or the halfway point of your monitor. When you’ve hit that limit, stop.
3. Try to do this at the same point in your day, every day, or at least every day you can manage to reach that point. Like, the first thing you do after you shower or hydrate or get home from work is briefly visit your inbox. If you can make it a habit, you may be able to get around the guilt spiral of could and should and ought. Don’t forget to stop at your predetermined stopping point.
4. If you have such a gigantic daily influx of messages that you can’t reduce the size of your inbox even by a tiny bit using this method, use your 10 or 15 minutes of inbox time to think about why. If you are super popular, it’s OK to put a message on your blog, or whatever, that due to circumstances beyond your control you won’t be answering private messages for the foreseeable future. And then–delete them unread. If you think you ought to be checking out deals but you never have the spoons to open the deal alerts, opt out. It’s OK to unfollow bloggers you can’t find the energy to read anymore. And so on. Whittle down your inbox to things that actually help you, give you a little lift that doesn’t cost more energy, or keep you out of trouble.
Hits home.
Sounds familiar, but for me instead of email it was dishes, or laundry, or supper…
I think it’s mostly the “social” aspect of messages of any kind. Having to deal with someone else, even though or maybe *because* you can’t see them and their reactions, without accidentally hurting anybody or whathaveyounot, is quite power-consuming at times. Sometimes, there’s not even enough power left for a little smiley in a message, just because the brain cannot even fake that little anymore. I have dropped out of communities for that very reason, because talking to people through chats, messages, forums etc. became impossible due to that type of powerlessness for a while, and then I didn’t feel like I could just resume anymore. What would they say about the previously unanswered messages? How would I explain? In words they understand? And bang, stupid brain used up all that little bit of accumulated power again => back to bed.