I just gave myself a wonderful Christmas gift, one that I never thought I’d ever achieve. As of 9 a.m. today, I officially got my GeekWire email account — john@geekwire.com — down to zero email messages.
That’s no small achievement given the daily barrage of email that hits technology journalists like us. On any given day, my GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop and I receive hundreds of emails. We try to read each one, but that’s not always doable, meaning canned press releases and other correspondences often end up in the trash (or piling up in my inbox).
Even with a rapid delete button, it’s hard to keep up, and I usually fall behind with hundreds of emails stacked in my inbox. (Ah, life as a tech journalist. Isn’t it so much fun!)
I realize that today’s achievement is kind of sad. I am sitting here on Christmas morning watching SMU play Fresno State in the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl while deleting and archiving emails.
But everyone in my family is still asleep. The gifts are all wrapped. And, when I noticed I was hanging at about 50 email messages earlier this morning, I decided to make a mad dash and just go for it.
It feels a bit eery seeing the blank white space in my inbox. And I am not quite sure where to go from here now that I’ve achieved the coveted “inbox zero” status.
But before I get too excited and break out the bubbly, there’s another email inbox to handle. Yep, that’s right. I operate two email handles, and my other longstanding gmail account is kind of beyond help.
As of this morning, its inbox count stood at 1,849 messages.
Ugh.
I don’t think I’ll be tackling that project today. It’s time to celebrate the holidays. And there’s always next year.
Happy holidays everyone. Here’s to more email clutter in the new year!
