Ever feel overwhelmed by e-mail? I do quite often. Many days I've worked as fast as I can for two or three hours at a shot trying to answer a big pile of them. By the time I finished, my inbox was filling up again. It’s an unending cycle. I have frequently felt like e-mail’s slave instead of taming it as my servant.
It’s odd that I’ve spent two to three hours many days on e-mail, yet often have struggled to invest a solid, quiet hour in prayer and the Scriptures. My pattern has been to spend lots more time on e-mail with believers than I do building intentional relationships with unbelievers. Something is definitely wrong with this picture.
How can I tame this insatiable beast that’s crept into my life, doing its best to dominate me? I know I’m to have no other gods in my life before the God of all creation, the God of the Bible. Frankly, I don’t have a formula to follow that tames this intrusive, electronic beast well. But I am trying to discover ways to avoid its deadly grip that can dominate me, my time, my energy. Here are some the ideas I’m trying to implement:
1) Give the best hours of my day to what’s most important in my life . . . not to e-mail.
2) Limit my time with the e-mail beast. For me, it's ninety minutes a day. I'd like to get it down to an hours. This beast is usually hungry for much more. Denying it takes intentionality on my part. My ninety minute limitation makes me hit the delete button more often and write shorter replies.
3) Unsubscribe / untangle myself from being on lists resulting in lots of unhelpful e-mails piling up in my box. I avoid these lists like the plague.
4) Forget e-mail for more important, higher impact communication. Either see the person face-to-face or pick up the phone and call.
5) Do unto others as I would have them do to me. When I don’t stuff their inboxes with junk, they’re less likely to send junk my direction. I neither want to become an e-mail junkie nor do I want to help others become junkies.
You may have some other ideas that can help me tame this beast. I’d love to hear about them. Most importantly, I want to invest well in people and relationships, especially life’s most important relationships with God, my wife, my children, my coworkers, and those unbelievers God has brought into my life. How sad it would be to have all my e-mails caught up and miss out on these more important, weightier opportunities.
When e-mail has its death grip around our necks, may God give us the wisdom and discipline we need to slay it, breaking its control so that what’s more important in our lives can flourish!
