e-mail fatigue

So THAT'S why I hate e-mail!  Decision fatigue!

Lately, I've been writing posts based on the book Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human-Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney.  I've been blown away by the author's explanation of "decision fatigue", the fact that any long, uninterrupted series of decisions--if we don't get a rest and maybe a bite to eat before we continue--is going to drain us.  Big decisions with a lot at stake are the most draining, of course, but even trivial stuff like which lane to drive in on the highway saps our energy.

So now I know why I hate e-mail.  At my job I get at least 100 e-mails per day--not including the junk mail that I know I can delete instantly.  All the others require decisions.  Do I file this for later?  Can I just delete it?  What's this guy asking for?  All too often, people want something--expect something--but they don't just come out and say it.  I have to DECIDE what they want, and now I know why this drains me.

And then there are the tiny decisions:  sort by date?  by author?  by subject?  If I sort by subject, I wonder if I'm neglecting something urgent.  If I sort by date, I wonder if I'm missing the chance to respond to and then delete 10 messages that are all part of a chain.  So I go back and forth but research has shown that even these small decisions are draining.

And then if I let my inbox get too big, and it's often well above 300, I repeat decisions on the same e-mails for weeks.  I see again that old e-mail.  I didn't know what to do with it yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that, and I don't know what to do with it today.  But now I've struggled with decisions multiple times for the same e-mail.  This is why many time management experts such as David Allen with his "Getting Things Done" system urge you to get the inbox to zero almost daily.

This is my current 30 day goal.  Started 6 days ago with my inbox at 380 at 9 am.  Started to graph the size of my inbox every morning at 9 am.  Showing the graph to a friend each day.  I told him he's holding me accountable to improving every day.  He didn't volunteer for the job.  But I told the poor guy he has the job now because he sits next to the printer.  Every day I show him the graph and I feel compelled to have progress each day.  He just laughs at me, but my inbox is already down to 220.  And I don't dare to walk past him on any day with a graph that shows anything less than progress.