I'm asking because I've been in a reading burnout for years, and I don't think I'm alone. While I love picking up a book at the end of the day, I'm often tired of reading all the other stuff on my phone and email--and I know some of it's actually important.
Example: I got a text yesterday saying my Go-Phone provider is changing to 3G and my phone has to be "adjusted" -- whatever that means. While it's the last thing I feel like dealing with right now, at least it's useful information.
My g-mail account, meanwhile, at least tries to sort things into useful or primary information, social emails and promotional ones. Then there's my Outlook email at work, which doesn't sort at all.
I can hardly stand sifting through all of it, but sift I must. I have decided surveys on how my experience was using a product or going to a hair salon or doctor should be illegal, at the very least. Seeing them is an instant DELETE for me.
We all know what a time-trap social media can be, let alone news channels. Snail mail still has to be opened every day or it piles up. So how do we deal with all the endless and mostly unwanted information bombarding us?
I try to do a quick triage every time I look at email with the aim of discarding superfluous copy. That helps a little, but not much. My husband hardly ever looks at email, but he's in the trucking business, so doesn't have to. Writers aren't as lucky.
I'm starting to wonder if this could be a new business opportunity? Get paid to sift through people's emails. Of course, you'd still have to read your own, but at least you'd get paid for most of the burnout. I'm not at the point where I'd hire someone, but I may get there some day, who knows?
At this point I am truly tired of not getting walk time or bike time or just plain me time because I'm stuck inside reading information I don't need from people I don't know or even want to know.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Now that's an email I will read.
I'm intrigued by the idea of paying someone to sift through email. It would have to be someone very trustworthy as some folks get pretty private messages through there.
ReplyDeleteBut, yeah, sometimes all of the notices do get to be too much.
Thank you, Lydia, that's a great point about trusting someone to sift through private emails. I hadn't even thought of it. :)
DeleteMy favourite feature on Gmail is "snooze". And I honestly try and clean out my email every single day. If I don't have time for it, I'll snooze it. The key is to go through the snooze folder when I have some "extra" time and either delete (because I end up snoozing at least a few things I end up not having time for) or take care of it. Conquering my Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) was also a good tactic. I now realize that 1) if it really matters, it will come up again and 2) I can have priorities that dictate the time I spend on things, even if that means missing out.
ReplyDeleteLove this idea, Shannon - I will check out the snooze button! I agree with you about getting over the whole FOMO thing, too.
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