e-mail overload
May 23, 2005 by Mike Wendland
I’m back from a week’s vacation and sorting through nearly 1,000 e-mails that made it past the spam filters while I was gone that need to be at least perused. And it wasn’t that I didn’t logon during my break. I did, several times a day, clearing out the obvious junk and leaving the rest.
But what a bunch of junk the rest turned out to be.
Every PR firm in the world, I’m convinced, sends me their pitches, mostly for obscure products and services I never look at. I’m also on the mailing list of too many government government agencies that flood me with announcements of appointments and meetings in places I don’t live, visit or cover about subjects I don’t report on my beat.
And then there’s the quasi-spam sent by people looking for free publicity or spouting off about some issue that has nothing to do with technology.
I’m sure a lot of this just comes with my job as a tech columnist.
But I bet it’s the same for many of you, too, with whatever work you do.
I see no way around at least two hours of work cleaning out my e-mail.
This is not a happy Monday.
I agree- I hate to miss a day for all that gets piled up, and I’m not a public person like yourself. I think the next big thing (or at least a coming big thing in technology) will be better systems to manage all the information coming at us and help sort it based on our priorities, not those of the time-sucking e-mailers. Instead of a PDA (personal digital assistant), I need a DPA (digital personal assistant).