At this point, I do not consider myself “good” at email. Maybe I need better terms though. I do not reply to people in a timely manner, particularly if it calls for a long, thoughtful post. I let my email become a very inefficient to do list and let things just hang out in my inbox forever. I resent the time I do spend on email, as if it is taking away from something else more important for me to do.

Seriously, I’m just not good at it at this point.

When I had a day job, I remember being able to keep my inbox under control. I generally kept fewer than a dozen items in it at any time. Everything either got filed or put onto to do lists.

So that is what I’m going to start doing again.

I have three active email addresses that I regularly receive email at. Plus a couple of others that I infrequently get email at.

To give myself a cheat to start, I’m going through only the last month’s worth of email on each account and either archiving, replying, deleting, or putting onto a TO DO list.

Everything else, and I have email from 2015 in my inbox, is all getting put into a folder labeled 2019.

If I ever feel as though I need to go through all that email, I can. I will have it. I will be able to search for things (which I do find that I need to do from time to time.)

But seriously. I don’t need the rest of that shit.

Going forward, my goal is to have zero email in my inbox by Sunday night every week. I’m going to start using the Task function on my inbox program and just get myself back into good email habits.

I don’t know how long it takes me to do email every day. I’ve always believed that it takes about an hour a day. My hope is that if I’m organized, I’ll spend less time doing email and instead, will make those things in my inbox quickly into tasks and on my to do list so that I don’t end up having them just sit there and fester.

When I came up with this idea, I felt a tremendous sense of relief. I don’t like having all those emails just hanging out there. I need to do something about them.

I doubt that the first iteration of my email cleanup will work. That’s okay. It’s a start. I’ll probably fail miserably a few times before I figure out what actually works for me.

And I’m going to leave it at that. Trying something new for the new year.

I hope that each and every one of you has things to look forward to in this coming year. 2019 wasn’t the greatest for me. I’m really hoping that 2020 is better.

So what new thing are you trying at the start of the year? Do you expect it to be successful right off the bat, or are you going to have to iterate?