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| Impressed? I thought so. |
When I am not busy engaging in prize-winning photo shoots of household pests, I busy myself with this stupid trick of avoiding my email for a day, or even part of a day, so I can live my real life, the one happening out here, away from the computer. You know, the life with children in it, who might actually need me to pay some attention to them?
Unfortunately, the longer I avoid the email, the harder it is to open it back up. And the longer I wait to open it back up, the more anxious I get about what might be waiting in there for me. So then I think, This is too stressful. I won't do that again, I'll just read stuff as it comes in. But then I end up getting sucked into whatever problems are happening out there in my neighborhood, or my homeschool group, or whatever, and waste my whole day dealing with other people's problems, while ignoring my own kids; so I think, This is too stressful. I'm only going to check my email once a day. And I am right back where I started.
Does anyone else have this problem? Is there a solution? I mean, aside from not using email at all? Or maybe that IS a solution? Discuss.
E-mail AND stinkbug anxiety all at the same time? Just more evidence that life is unfair.
ReplyDeleteI have no good solution to e-mail. I'm pretty sure that it is better to be living real life than to be reading e-mails all day long.
Unfortunately, I have to check email many times during the day. It seems a person cannot be a coach unless he knows how to switch games and practices on a maddeningly frequent, last minute basis. If I didn't check it, my kids would be left to die at an empty soccer field, so, check it I will. But they can't make me happy about it.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with that stink bug. I'd be more sympathetic, but I'm in the middle of our annual sugar ant invasion, hot on the heels of our lady bug take-over.
I have to check e-mail all day at work. If I'm lucky, I can weed through and delete about two-thirds of it as junk, but I still have plenty of "real" messages to deal with... and THAT is the problem: e-mail started as a fun way to communicate with friends and family. Now it's mostly work, advertisements, spam, and more work.
ReplyDeleteSome days I have to force myself check my personal e-mail because it's more of the same, although instead of work it's the neighborhood association or parent group for track or scouts or _____ (fill in the blank). All of it represents things that other people want or expect us to do for them.
Sorry about those stink bugs. I don't have any more advice except to move away -- and you don't want to do that, you have freshly painted walls!
Exactly - email is not a happy place anymore. I go to Facebook for that!
DeleteMy personal email is generally not too difficult, but I feel like the workplace has been destroyed by email. It's absolutely ridiculous. I probably spend fully half of every working day dealing with email, and so many people communicate so poorly in writing that I often have no idea what the person is talking about. Maybe we could train the stinkbugs to manage our email.
ReplyDeleteFinally, a proper use for stinkbugs!
DeleteI'd rather have email than phone calls. But aside from that, I have no advice. (I know, stop the presses!) I deal with email all day and now that I have a smartphone check it way oftener than I used to on my off time.
ReplyDeleteI hear you on the emails. HATE that chore. And I let stuff backlog and it creates an even bigger mess. Maybe for every dozen emails we take care of , we should get a prize of some sort...wine or chocolates?
ReplyDelete