I…I just cleared my email box. It’s zero for the first time in AGES. I had, like 267 emails that I needed to get to and kept putting off. I didn’t even declare email bankruptcy and archive them all.
I found this thing. The Email Game.
It turns answering emails into a game and, apparently, I am enough of a sucker for timed challenges that it works for me. The thing that I really don’t get is that I often let email build up because the pressure to answer it can get overwhelming. I’m pretty reliable correspondent with pen and paper, but email… you know? And somehow, adding pressure through the use of a timer and sad faces makes it easier to answer email. My brain makes zero sense.
But, um, if you are wired the same way I am, check The Email Game out.
I wonder if it works by changing our perception to moving forward instead of looking backwards. Or maybe because it offers achievement rather than demands time. Or… it might be more complex.
THANK YOU for sharing this. E-mail is such a chore. And it is so easily minimized (“I know she’ll get back to me today because it ONLY takes five minutes to write an email”). I look forward to cleaning out my Gmail account with this.