That is the only way to describe my email inbox. Totally. Freaking. Out of control.
How does it happen?
It starts so innocently. Yes, I need to save that email to refer back to.
All right, I need to explain that my filing skills are abysmal. I file everything very nicely, neatly, and perfectly. But I seldom can find them again. When I’m filing, it makes absolutely perfect sense to file -- say a crock pot chicken recipe in the crock pot folder of the recipe folder on my hard drive. No problem. But months later I may have a vague recollection of that recipe so I start hunting. Usually under the Main Dishes folder. At some point, it may dawn on me this was for a crock pot, and then I will go look in the crock pot folder. Unfortunately it doesn’t just happen with my recipes. It happens with everything.
Since things tend to work better unfiled, I tend to leave my emails as they are and where they are. The trouble comes when I forget the email / file is there. Over the weekend, I deleted over 3,000 emails. Sounds good. I refuse to say how many more are left. As I go through them, I think I should file them, but I really want the information and I know filing is akin to sending it into a black hole.
If anyone has information or tips on how to corral all of this information I am certain I need, I would love to hear it. Separating the emails themselves into folders isn’t really the answer (yes, tried that too).
Please share and save me from drowning in electronic files.
