PRODUCTIVITY

Inbox Anxiety

Photo by Mikaela Wiedenhoff on Unsplash

Last week I got a reminder on a bill from my accountant, I had missed the original in my inbox. I opened it up and saw a $75 late fee and while I don’t begrudge the late fee — I am a small business owner myself — I was really annoyed that I didn’t see it when it was first issued. I always pay my bills on time every time.

I usually don’t get wound up about things like this, I deal with things and move on. But I was taken aback at how much it upset me. I didn’t want my accountant thinking I was disrespecting him by not paying — and the fact that important things could be missed in my inbox. I felt like some sort of failure. The inbox is where people can contact me. Reliably. The failure was some sort of broken promise.

I could see the problem — everything that is delivered into my inbox with the same flattened importance. Every email is just as important as another. When, really, they’re not. Over December with the increased spam load, I had noticed a creeping fatigue with my inbox, the cognitive load of sorting, going through the junk to find the things that were important. The junk was taking my attention and precious energy and I began to feel a sense of anxiety when thinking about my inbox.

Later, I wondered if it was my fault that I missed that first invoice….was I careless? But now I think about it, the problem is structural — my inbox “work” was being co-opted by spam. When everything comes into the inbox has no sorting or organisation, missing important stuff was going to happen sooner or later. So it’s NO MY FAULT.

So, my new year’s resolution is to mark all junk as spam. I am no longer “unsubscribing” to lists, there is simply too many of them. Let THEM deal with it, I cannot have them in my inbox any more. I did wonder if it would impact their businesses, reporting their emails as spam, but I they are the ones who are sending spam after I unsubscribed, after I bought something from them (DID I SIGN UP FOR SPAM? NO). I don’t know any one who likes spam, so why do they persist???

I also created a filter rule, by adding a label to the invoices coming from my account. A bit of insurance!

This morning I felt a sense calm checking my emails. I have regained some control over my emails! YES! I did not know I was so stressed by my inbox. I needed clarity, not increased effort and that is what finally reduced my stress and anxiety. I made a new system, an inbox with some semblance of organisation and a way to stop to the fire hose of spam.

So early on in the new year too. Can’t wait for the rest of 2026 BRING IT ON!!!