REsign

I'm overwhelmed - and that's just not a good thing in my line of work.  One of the things I preach, tho, is to anticipate the need to adapt when life throws you a curve ball... and life is throwing me a curve ball!  I'm seeing this as a blessing in disguise: now that I'm having to adjust and adapt, I can better relate to a struggling client when it's their turn.

But, still.  It's been rough.

But I'm a fighter & a trooper so I'm going to plug my way thru this.  I've been consumed by too many projects lately and the day-to-day maintenance of my life has fallen to the wayside.  I didn't realize how much until I thought to check my personal email account & had 3k emails waiting for me...

Yikes.

I had messages that were weeks to months old!  Appointment reminders (I didn't forget, but I never got the email), messages from friends, notices of Facebook updates, Breaking News stories, blog updates, Pinterest board new followers and repins, sale ads (shopportunities missed! Say it ain't so!)...

My-oh-my!  I spent hours  - hours! - deleting & deleting & deleting.  Right off the bat - just deleted.  I got my inbox down to 770.  That was an eye-opener.  Obviously, I've got too many blog and newsletter subscriptions going on.  I've resigned myself that it will need to change.

So!  I've formulated a plan of action.  I'm going to take an hour a day to continue to weed thru the remaining emails - and read them, not just save them for later (or file them away - I'm pretty good at that).  As a new email comes in, I'll unsubscribe from those that are just cluttering up my inbox and limit my multiple interests blogs to just the very best one for each subject.  I'm also going to set aside a separate 30 minutes every day to review & manage the new emails from that day.  And I've learned deleting isn't enough.  I also have to go back & empty out my deleted folder.  That will be a new weekly task.

Email, social media and technology are, indeed, grand!  However, they can be incredibly time consuming.  Spending several hours on a Sunday evening catching myself up on months worth of useless email clutter is not my idea of a great way to wrap up a weekend.  Lesson learned: I don't want to go thru this again.

Tonight's theme is "resigning" because I'm resigning from being overwhelmed, and I'm resigning from subscriptions that only amount to useless email clutter, and I'm resigned to make a valid effort for change moving forward.  I want to embrace this wonderful technology we've been so blessed with and utilize it to my advantage.  Not be buried under it.