How’s your inbox?

When I returned to work after my sabbatical leave I had over 250 emails waiting for my attention. Some were spam, some were newsletters, some were received because of subscriptions and some were sent personally.

I selected them all and pressed ‘delete’. It was wonderfully cathartic.

I can already hear some of you complaining that it wasn’t a very kind thing to do, that some of them might have been important. That’s true. However there was more going on behind the scenes that I think justify the global erasing of these emails.

First of all, my ‘out of office’ email message warned people that I wasn’t around for 3 months and that when I got back I’d be deleting all those that had arrived in my absence, so if it’s important please send it again after 1 September. So far nobody has…

Secondly, our amazing Administrator had been reviewing my emails as they arrived and had copied any that were important so she could send them to me after the email massacre. (She only had 4 to send me).

We use email inboxes in different ways. Some people (you know who you are) never delete emails and have thousands and thousands of them sitting in your inbox. Perhaps it’s inertia, or the thought that you may want to refer to it again, or not wanting to face what the email is about, but you have allowed them to accumulate so much that the thought of having a cull is overwhelming. If you need to find one so much scrolling is involved that you get a friction burn on your mouse finger.

Others manage the inbox with lots of subfolders into which any that are important are saved, and the main inbox is left fairly empty.

Some people use the inbox as a sort of ‘to do’ list – keeping emails there until they have been answered or the issue has been resolved. The presence of the email means you don’t forget to respond.

And some are ruthless, deleting emails as soon as they have been read or replied to, and deleting some even before they have been read.

How many emails are in your inbox?

And how many unanswered issues are hanging around in your life? Are there difficult conversations you’re putting off? Are there things you regret that hang around in your memory because you haven’t apologised? Are there habits you’d like to kick? Are there painful memories that lurk in the shadows and emerge at unexpected moments?

It may be that you need some help with them – from a friend, a pastor, a counsellor / therapist. If so, have the courage to ask for that help. The likelihood is that dealing with these things will be a process, not as simple as simply pressing ‘delete all’ but it will prove as cathartic in the longer term.

Be blessed, be a blessing