Inbox Zero

January11

I have spent the most delicious hour reading Inbox Zero, Merlin Mann’s[1] treatise on zeroing out your e-mail inbox and keeping it from overwhelming you every single day.

Delicious, because my e-mail inbox actually scares me some days. It’s currently sporting 348 shiny unread e-mails, and for reasons that Mr. Mann seems to intuitively understand, that fact just makes me want to go back to bed and pretend I have the flu. Delicious, because in ten easily-digested articles, Mr. Mann lays out a recipe for dealing with the waves and waves of information, conversations, questions and can-you-do’s that crash against the shore of your mind relentlessly.

Delicious, because he promises that if you deal with the flotsam and jetsam, you’ll have time to write the long, conversational e-mails to the people you enjoy! Instead of sitting on them for so long that it feels silly to even try to answer them, and then you feel like a failure as a human being. I totally do that. And I would really like to not do that.

In addition to all the other impulses I’m going to be giving into this year, I’m going to be giving full rein to my productivity fetish. Lifehacks, GTD, 43 Folders, and the like. There! I am admitting the depths of my geekgrrlness to the innernets! This is who I am, darn it! I would love to be a foodie or a knitter or make lovely homemade bath fizzers from scratch, but realistically, I’m a just a geek.

But maybe… Maybe if I get all my ducks in a row this year I’ll find some extra time to be a more well-rounded geek!

  1. The guy who runs the productivity website 43 Folders [↩]
Filed under Geek Grrrl, Hacking The Life Fantastic
3 Comments to

“Inbox Zero”

  1. Avatar January 12th, 2009 at 7:39 AM Lujza Says:

    Funny thing is….I just “zeroed” out my in-box the other day….what a wonderful sight!
  2. Avatar January 12th, 2009 at 10:07 PM Chelsea Says:

    Hey, thanks for the comment on my LJ! Nablopomo is awesome, isn’t it?

    I’ve been in your situation before with emails. I actually have no unread emails at the moment, but I’m sure that will change. It’s worse with pen pals.

    Their responses just end up getting longer and longer, then you don’t reply right away. “I’ll do it tomorrow”, you tell yourself for a week. Then before you know it, two weeks have passed. Now they’re pissed because you haven’t replied to their 10 page essay but you don’t want to tell THEM that it feels like work!
  3. Avatar January 13th, 2009 at 8:17 AM Dawn on MDI Says:

    You’d have no fun as a knitter. Those blog ladies are freakin’ hard-CORE, man! Stick with what you love – be a geek. Me? I’m just a freaky, middle-aged lesbian builder/welder/foodie. Makes breakfast interesting, though.
  • Project Timekeeper Box:
    Making (painting and setting up) my very own Big Box of ADHD for a fun way to manage my own time and projects! I've bought a box with 9 drawers to use.



I’m here because I’m lonely. I’m here because people who are lonely in the same way I am lonely have a very hard time finding each other. .

Being hearing impaired / deaf is lonely.
Having bipolar disorder is lonely.
Being an undergraduate student in your mid-thirties is lonely.
Being a Biblical Studies major is lonely.
Being infertile is lonely.

And even though it shouldn’t be, being desperately in love with God is sometimes the loneliest feeling there is.

So there it is. I’m dropping any attempt to be slick or intellectual or one of the cool kids. I’m just here to share the things I struggle with, the things I’m trying to understand and the things I am learning.