Email Clutter

Email clutter - why does this happen to so many of us? Well, personally, I hate clutter - I hate clutter!... So, just a few days ago I started to think to myself and, - lo and behold, I realized I clutter as well, but not with material things, I clutter with emails. True, I don’t leave things laying around the house or at the office. I know where all of my important paperwork and documents are, so I have access to them on the spot just in case I need them for something or other. Furthermore, I live with other people now, but when I had my own 2 bedroom condo just a few years ago, there was so much empty space in it that you could have stored a 747 inside it with little to now problems. How then, do I, as well as many of us clutter? We do it by keeping old and useless emails in folders, etc....

Just recently I read about an office that actually went on an “email diet.” According to this article I read just a few months ago. This office had so many email interactions from its employees, that it decided to go on an “email diet.” The email diet consisted of one day out of the week, all of the employees in this office had to physically approach each other and ask/demand what it was that they wanted/needed from each other instead of using the Internet. This occurred as a result of the office’s employees being constantly bombarded with numerous emails from their managers, as well as each other.... This said, things are always a bit different at work, because we have to keep some trail and documentation on what it's we're doing. I’m the type of individual that gets asked by his co-workers for emails that were sent a long time ago by management. ‘Do you have the email which was sent 2 years ago by so and so stating we could/couldn’t do this?’ I usually do have all emails that were sent to me.... Nevertheless, I’ve noticed that my PC takes a bit longer to start in the morning than some of my co-workers’ PC as a result of all the information I’ve kept on it....

At home, things are much different though. I have about 4 different personal email accounts which I really don’t need. In auditing these personal email accounts of mine, I realized that I too have quite a bit of clutter in them. Old emails from some of my friends and old acquaintances which are of little to no consequence to me at the present time.. Besides, I love talking on the phone to people. I love calling my friends and also my family and just chatting with them for a good while on the phone, instead of using my email to communicate with them. However, I’m a 21th Century man, and just like the rest of us we have very little choice but to use electronic communications at one point or another in our lives. So, I’ve decided to audit my email accounts and delete any old email that has become obsolete. See what’s important to you and what is not. Then proceed to delete/erase emails which are no longer needed - don't clutter with emails.