Personal

Email > Life

I have found emailing to be the predominant form of communication in all aspects. It is the de facto way of communication beyond the telephone, face to face and everything. Though it may not be “instant” or spectacular in any way, its simplicity and effectiveness make it the number one choice when sending a message to someone else. It allows us to send a message on our own time and have someone respond back on their own time. Asynchronous communication, without all the nifty features. The sad part is, what do you do with all that space in the middle when people send one on their own time? I just finished replying to all my old emails that I have missed from 2 days of absense and it just reminded me how utterly maddening emails can be. Triaging messages, setting mail boxes to sort emails and sifting through old messages to answer new questions. I can only thank for the search program, spotlight, that is built into OS X. My greatest fear is when my emails will become 100x more intensified when working in a larger community with more concurrent projects running about. In fact, I can already feel the flow of emails coming on as the Spring quarter is kicking off. It reminds me of the articles I need to read courtesy of 43 Folders where they discuss the matters of emails and how to maintain your sanity. Their series “Inbox Zero” discusses a lot of great strategies when dealing with astronomical amounts of emails even if you have rules set to organize the inbox. It is definitely a great read.