Simplifying, stage 1

Since being in school and working last January, it is an understatement to say that I struggled to keep up with my life. Every single part of it. I decided as a part of my quest to become a better Courtney, that I would break my life up into chunks and work on each chunk.

Today we'll be talking about the chunk of life that is staying in touch with others through the internet. This can include email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I have always been a fairly reliable responder to emails that come my way and usually try and put effort into the response (i.e., not a "life is busy, how are you" type of email which I have to admit drives me a bit crazy).

So today I have started my simplify mantra by CLEANING OUT MY INBOXES. I had no idea how good this could be for the soul. Ok, Type A personalities probably won't feel the rush quite like I have in cleaning out an inbox, but if you get a high in the slightest from things being organized or clean, DO THIS TODAY.

It started simple. I looked through my Comcast inbox (I also have Yahoo, Facebook and CU) and noticed there were 140 emails that I was waiting to do something with and were lurking at me every time I logged on. I glanced through each one and wrote down categories. I then created folders (I do this at work, why I haven't really done it on my personal email is mindboggling) and moved a whole bunch of things into hidden folders. Then I deleted a whole bunch of things that I figured I really just didn't need hanging over my head (sorry to anyone who hasn't had a response from me lately). Then I took action on some that couldn't just be filed (pictures I wanted to download and put into iPhoto). It took at least an hour.

Now I have all of 2 emails in my inbox. It's positively orgasmic. Really. I should have done this long ago. Next step is cleaning out the other inboxes and then onto other chunks.

Also pretty recently discovered that I can write updates to this blog and set them to go on different days. So when I get an hour or two a week to write down thoughts I can schedule a whole bunch of posts to go out later. Genius.

Amen to simplicity plan, stage 1.