Email Overload

Microtrends, the technology blog of the Times of London, recently introduced me to the concept of Inbox Zero, a program to help people overcome the problem of Email Overload. The program is the creation of Merlin Mann, a blogger who developed the project as part of 43 Folders, his blog on productivity and creative potential (to the best of my discernment-- he insists that he writes about the much broader topic of "how people make stuff"). Mann's prose is a blend of 12-step recovery jargon and macho posturing that reminds me of Tom Cruise's character in Magnolia. One moment he's consoling that "there's no need to be ashamed of admitting that you aren't perfect and can't do everything flawlessly all the time" and the next he's making reference to Neal Stephenson's, um, "pants stones" which I think is some sorta jock term for "courage."

Inbox Zero advocates a triangulated attack on email through ruthless unsubscribing from email lists, heightened filters and better archiving practices. There's also a lot of advice on responding to email-- using template emails, being brief, and being honest about what you have the time to answer. It's all very practical, commonsensical advice, nothing very groundbreaking.

Yet the message is obviously resonating. Inbox Zero isn't the only website addressing email overload. On Inbox Victory folks post screenshots of their empty inboxes to celebrate their victory over email overload. The Washington Post has reported on "email bankruptcy", the idea of just deleting it all and starting fresh, which is a tactic that the blog Email Overloaded considers "worse in some ways than financial bankruptcy" if you haven't thought through a recovery plan.

What's really interesting to me is in all of this is the level of emotional baggage that gets pinned to email. I'd never consider myself a likely candidate for a recovery program, but I do see some truth in Merlin Mann's suggestion that we're looking to the number of emails received as a form of validation-- of being are well-liked, or in demand for our professional expertise. The implication is that this isn't a problem with email, but an emotional problem manifesting as a problem with email.

As far as I can tell, the metaphor hasn't been extended in the other direction. There's cultural significance to purging as well as to overconsumption. The empty inbox zeal shares the same less-is-more premise as a whole strain of evangelism from religious ascetics and abstinence pledgers to calorie restrictionists and colon hydrotherapy fanatics. Look at my inbox, I'm so uncluttered and Zen and pure! Look at your inbox, it's so lazy and gluttonous and sad!

The argument cleaves along the line of puritanism and decadence, a familiar framework for so much else in our culture as well.