To E or Not to E
A couple of weeks ago, someone interviewed me about my upcoming book release. I had the luxury of taking my time to write out answers because I received the questions via e-mail. (How cool is that?) After I completed them, I sent my answers to a couple of friends to look over and make sure that I, A) had no typos and B) sounded reasonably sane. (I can fool some of the people some of the time.)
One question was about how I manage my time. And I included in my answer a rant about being buried alive in email. I’m several hundred messages behind, especially since my hip surgery. Yesterday I started with twenty in my personal “in” box (we won’t even talk about my work account) and at the end of a day spent mostly answering e-mail, I had twenty at 10 PM. They were just twenty different messages.
Many messages I truly appreciate. Especially from relatives far away and friends who actually have my phone number stashed somewhere. But email’s blessing and curse is that I’m more accessible. That means I can interact more with serious learners and know how they’re processing what they’re learning and provide individual guidance. (Love that.) But I am also fair game to answer stuff like, “I heard you write books and my best friend's cousin's brother is the next John Grisham. In your free time, will you help him get published?" Yet if I answer such questions with silence, I’m a snob, right? (“That Glahn woman never even bothered to respond.”)
I basically wrote all this in the interview and Kelley wrote back like the good friend she is and said, “You sound like you’re whining. Not that I disagree, but I’m not sure that’s the tone you want here.”
Of course she was right. So I nixed that part. But I had to laugh when a few days later on July 1, the New York Times ran an essay titled, “The Six Stages of E-mail.” To summarize the writer outlined the stages this way:
Infatuation I just got e-mail! Who said letter writing was dead? I come home and ignore all my loved ones … to make contact with total strangers. I’ve got mail!
Clarification So e-mail isn’t letter-writing. It saves so much time. It takes five seconds to accomplish in an e-mail message something that takes five minutes on the telephone.
Confusion Viagra!!!!! Best Web source for Vioxx. XXXXXXXVideos. Add three inches to the length of your penis. Virus Alert. FW: This will make you laugh.
Disenchantment Help! I’m drowning. I have 112 unanswered e-mail messages. Most of my messages are from people who don’t have my phone number and would never call me.
Accommodation No thanks. Not my thing. Try me in a month. Try me in the fall.
Death Call me.
I'm hovering somewhere between accommodation and death. I think that stage is called "whining." What about you? How do you keep up with it? Helpful hints, anyone?