Work on your goals by focusing on what matters.
It is 9 am on a Monday morning, and the unread message counter on my Gmail app reads 129. A long time ago I self-diagnosed as an “Inbox Zero” type, a designation I used to be really proud of. But for the past three or so years it has been nearly impossible to get rid of the dreaded red circle. No matter how many newsletters I unsubscribe from, more seem to crop up everyday.
Many years ago I used to manage my freelance work through my inbox. I went through it like a to-do list of my deliveries for the day or the week. Things have changed a lot since then, though, as my email has become a no man’s land of special sales, appeals for donations and business tips and tricks you simply cannot miss. Work projects began to get lost in the deep marshes of daily miscellanea: unopened requests to apply for this or that position (often lengthy processes that end up leading nowhere), jobs I had little interest in, team back-and-forths that did not concern me in the least.
Occasionally I will go and delete it all, but for the most part I’ve sort of given up. I’ve let the wilderness run free and learned to coexist with the chaos. After all, the chaos is just a name for things that feel out of our control, and what if chaos has its own order we cannot seem to discern?