About three or four times a year, I feel the necessity of making a few humble requests regarding email. If you aren’t emailing me, please skip this post and go on to the next.
Anyone sending in an article or video idea, these comments don’t apply to you. I’m happy and grateful to receive your help with this task. It’s emails that are not needed that I wish to focus on.
By way of background, my inbasket reached proportions this morning where I stopped dead in my tracks and realized that it was beyond my ability to empty. And even if I did, it would just fill up again by late afternoon.
I’m now procrastinating around reading the 70-80 emails that have arrived since the last time I emptied it at 10:00 a.m. this morning. This is the first time I’ve reached a point of saying I don’t think I can face it.
I actually plan to take the rest of the day off. I declare a bank holiday. I need to recover the balance which the sight of a mountain of email has had me lose.
Let me review some problematic situations with the hopes that they will magically disappear.
There are a few people who write me every day, sometimes two or three times a day, giving me their reactions to matters or their take on subjects. I can’t manage that kind of continuous connection unless you’re sending really gemaine article or video suggestions. Really germaine.
If you won’t break off an endless series of emails, regretfully I’ll have to reroute your emails to email hell, the fiery lake of brimstone, and you wouldn’t want that, right?
Some send irregular 1-2 page-long comments on matters of concern. Again mail this long is beyond my ability to read unless very, very germaine. Like the U.N. Secretary General writing to say why BRICS did not disclose this month. Steadily-long emails I may not be able to read at all in the future, unless there’s a really good reason to, stated at the outset.
Some send emails with “you have to publish this one.” I have a variety of criteria I apply when I publish and need to be allowed to apply them, not urged or requested to suspend them for no stated or apparent reason.
Others say “watch this video and give me your opinion.” I find this a tad frustrating.
Two things about it. If you have a video suggestion please let me know why I should watch it. Not enough time now to watch videos purely on spec.
And, if you think about asking me to give an opinion for a moment, an opinion on what aspect of things? Everything? One specific thing? What happens if I give you my opinion and it isn’t on the thing you wanted an opinion on? When one is flat-out busy, a free-floating request for an opinion can bring things to a halt.
Finally, one type of email that can be dispensed with is sending a response with simply “Thank you, Steve.” It adds to the sighs of seeing a bulging in-basket and then produces a letdown when the email is opened. No need to thank me. Let’s just assume that that is understood. I know you’re being polite and kind, and I appreciate that, really I do. But the time factor weighs more heavily at the moment than the exigencies of normal etiquette.
I’m sure other lightworkers have similar reactions. Every competent writer has hundreds if not thousands of readers. It can be a bit daunting at times if many readers want contact with one writer. The time spent answering emails is time away from researching and writing. I don’t want to dispense with emails, but I also want to respond to the inner muse, the inner urge to write.
Thanks for listening. Please forgive me if I’ve stated anything poorly.