This past week there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about people and their e-mail inboxes. People, the article said, fall into two categories: those who throw everything out, and those who keep everything. It wasn’t a particularly new or unique subject, or take on the matter, but it was still fascinating as yet another reminder of the perennial question: Are you a hoarder or a thrower-outer? Of course just about everyone is passionate about the folly of the other side, so it makes for juicy reading.
The question, on close inspection, is not as simple as we all (from our various positions) like to make out. One example of how the issue of e-mail is not so simple is that really one finds three categories: (1) Those who horde everything in their e-mail inbox (2) those who throw everything out once read, and (3) Those who throw some stuff out and file the rest.
I find it interesting to think about the whole e-mail inbox issue because it can function as a stand-in for our larger lives, and how we approach them. In regards to both e-mail and life in general I find myself between the place that appeals to me and the place that I loathe. In the middle, never completely satisfied.
The coldly rational part of me is greatly in favor of throwing things out. The coldly rational part of me favors honing life down to the cleanest efficiency of activity. We only have so many hours in a day, and so many days in a life, so why waste any. The emotional part of me is in favor of saving that which has emotional value . . . whether it be sentimental (however slightly so) or issues of self-confidence (can’t throw away that bit of information–I might need it!).
I try to keep my inbox clean. In my mind the inbox is for those things which you have not yet read, or must deal with shortly. It’s an inbox. To me every item in the inbox is a reminder of something I must deal with and have failed to deal with, and so is a minor irritant until it is dealt with, deleted, or filed. I don’t understand how people can open up their e-mail client and see 1,203 things they haven’t dealt with staring back at them. The answer is that most people who have that many e-mails in their inbox don’t view it as a place to put things that must be dealt with shortly. To them the inbox is simply a dumping ground where everything goes.
Which is better–to delete your e-mail or save it? The WSJ was (perhaps playfully) stirring up this question again with the view that there is no one answer. But my answer is that technically, from the perspective of time efficiency, computers have become so fast, disk space so plentiful, and search features so effective that one would be using your time most efficiently if you simply read your email and let it roll down the stack of the inbox. That is the cold hard fact of the digital world. Those who leave their inbox overflowing may go away justified.
But, as I said, what really interests me about the “e-mail in your inbox” debate is how it can function as a stand-in for larger aspects of our life and attitudes. A person may let their inbox heap up with years of useless material with no ill effect, but one cannot do the same outside the digital realm. Google can’t search the stack of papers on your desk, or through the junk on your floor. While not everyone who leaves their inbox untended is a complete organizational wreck in the rest of their lives, everyone who is an organizational wreck in the rest of their lives is a slob in their inbox. And, while not everyone who keeps the rest of their life organized keeps their inbox organized, those people who studiously keep their inbox organized are also always those who keep the rest of their lives organized.
While I concede that in the narrow matter of e-mail it is no more efficient to file or delete, I believe the activity is a good discipline and good habit reinforcement for the rest of the areas of your life. If you can’t delete all those ancient e-mail tech newsletters that are now long out of date, how are you going to throw out all those old magazines that are long out of date? Sorting through email and deleting that which should be deleted, and properly filing that which should be filed is a good and easy lesson for applying the same to the rest of your life.
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