Thursday 1 September 2011

Fear of email

email drowning

I have a love / hate thing going on with email but up until recently, it was always more love than hate.

More recently though, I’ve been finding it’s starting to shred my nerves and whatever little is left of my sanity. 

I have all of my work email accounts set up on my home computers and on my smartphone as well. This has been fine for a year or so but now it’s starting to send me over the edge. At least on a PC I have control whether I open Outlook (I only use Outlook for work email), but I’m finding myself avoiding switching on 3G on my phone when commuting home now for fear of what might next emerge. 

But it gets worse; several times now when I'm in front of a computer, I’ve actually found myself imagining Outlook's email notification ping and pop-up in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and I find my eyes darting down there and shuddering at what new trauma awaits.

When I see that no new email has in fact arrived, I’m left with mixed feelings of relief and concern.

That can't be healthy. I think I need a holiday.

3 comments:

  1. I am worried about you, Michael. ;D

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  2. Oh dear...I made an effort to not have access to my work email from home as I just couldn't switch off, even on a weekend.

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  3. Andro... hopefully I'll pull through! That or get worse and develop the shakes as well! ;-)

    Gemma - I think your strategy might be the only sensible option. What I'd really like is a time machine and go back to pre-email days. Well, I could give it a whirl at least... :-)

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