Picture a generic Hollywood action movie. Or 24 part HBO series. Evil bloke with a goatee and a European accent is hell-bent on destroying the world as we know it. The good guys are running around trying to get to the MacGuffin before the little red LED display gets to 00:00:00 and the world explodes…
Now, what would it be good to tie to a chair strapped to 15 pounds of Semtex and a Best Buy timer? E-mail, thats what. Plenty of duct tape and e-mail.
You see, sometimes it is pretty healthy to have a known point in time when ‘mass destruction’ takes place. It gives us some momentum to get things done – the steroid-pumped hero is unlikely to save the pretty blonde if there isn’t a ticking clock – he’d just leave her in his inbox and grab another protein shake.
So how’s about setting yourself one of these timer things? Go into whichever torturous e-mail clients you have the misfortune of using, head to preferences, then mail rules and set one up that sends any e-mail that has been in your inbox for more than 3 days to a folder called ‘collateral’. Or even deletes it after that time if you are feeling all Bruce Willis.
Knowing that e-mail will disappear should you fail to deal with it, will force you to deal with it. And if you don’t deal with it, you may be surprised how little some of it matters. Spend your limited time on the important things, and not reading the latest viral picture of cats.
