When I began working, I did my best to clean out my email inbox at work before I left the office on Friday afternoons. I enjoyed this ritual of mine because it was cathartic knowing that I had completed my tasks for the week. When I arrived on Monday mornings, I knew that whatever emails were waiting for me were new news or actions that needed to be addressed during the coming week. It was a system that allowed me to keep track of everything so I could manage my work. I wouldn't delete the email until I had completed the project. It was a good system, and it worked well.
Like the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. (First Lord of the Admiralty), I started right at the bottom of the rung. While I did not polish up any handles, I did begin my professional career as a temporary employee. And just like Sir Joseph, I applied myself and moved from temp to secretary to legislative affairs specialist to public affairs specialist. So it seems my system must have worked. I heeded Sir Joseph's system of how to rise to the top:
Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool,
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule.
. . .
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!
Unfortunately, as I have accumulated more responsibility with each promotion, so too have I accumulated more emails. Today, I am no longer able to leave on a Friday on time, let alone with an empty inbox. I still do my best to delete emails only when the task is completed, but as my tasks have become more complex and long-term, emails sit in my inbox for longer periods of time than when I was still a secretary. Also, with greater responsibility comes more email. In my current position, I'm inundated daily with hundreds of emails that I've been cc:ed on—that is, emails that aren't even important to me, but that others feel that I should be privy to. In all, I average in the hundreds daily.
I do my best to keep up with them. I try to read as much as I can so that I'm current on the goings-on of NASA, but often it's overwhelming. It's hard enough just to keep track of the emails I have to read, let alone the ones I want to read. Sometimes the important ones seem to get lost in the shuffle with all the junk that I receive. And my system does help, but with so many emails flooding in, it's impossible to maintain this system to the level I would like.
As such, I feel that I need a new system. One that will help me even better than the previous one. And I think I found it. I call it the "Leftovers in the Freezer" system. When I make food, I feel guilty throwing it away. I paid for the ingredients. I slaved over the stove (or oven) to make said food. I can't just throw the leftovers away. So, I place them in a storage container and stick them in the freezer. Every few months, I go into the icebox and pull out the leftovers that have been sitting there long enough to become inedible. It's amazing how easy and guilt-free it is to trash freezer-burnt food. So too, with my "Leftovers in the Freezer" system, it is very easy to get rid of emails. All you have to do is just let the emails sit long enough to become obsolete. At that point, feel free to delete them without reading them. After all, they are now out-of-date and inconsequential.
