Mike Linksvayer

Mike Linksvayer at

I am further behind on email and related tasks than I ever have been in my life and I am procrastinating by leaving this tombstone. Bankruptcy is not my style though.

Christopher Allan Webber, jasonriedy@fmrl.me, Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) likes this.

Having been there, repeatedly:

First, be ruthless and just delete any unanswered email you don't have to respond to or otherwise react to. It's unfortunate and makes some people unhappy, but if you're in a hole, you need to do what you  can to get out. You can always send everyone an email explaining you're under a mountain of email and ask them to mail about the topic again in a month if it's still relevant.

Second, after you've dug yourself out from under the mountain, maintain the ruthlessness until you feel you can stay on top of things easily.

Third, if you haven't already, consider introducing a system for managing email (and other inputs) and actions that should result from that. I happen to favour Getting Things Done (http://gtdfh.branchable.com/) but whatever you fancy and works for you is fine.

Lars Wirzenius at 2016-08-02T06:22:04Z

Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠), Douglas Perkins, sazius likes this.

Thanks for the link Lars, looking forward to reading that. I've dutifully "captured" it for later. :)

Ben Sturmfels at 2016-08-02T06:32:00Z

Also, give yourself a reasonable time period (such as 10 days). Create a rule that deletes unread messages older than that time period.

lnxwalt@microca.st at 2016-08-03T02:39:29Z

I too hold on to e-mail messages, unanswered or not, far too long and I suspect not to my good health. What we require of others, as those we demand to ourselves, are simply too many and too frequent. Everyone needs a break.

Tyng-Ruey Chuang at 2016-08-03T20:49:05Z

Christopher Allan Webber likes this.