My Name is Susie and I am an Emailaholic

Last Saturday as Peter and I flew to California for a week’s “vacation”, I promised him that I would deal with my email issues. My email issues are such that if there was an email recovery group (and maybe there is) I would have to stand up and say, “Hi, my name is Susie and I am an emailaholic.”

I actually really like email and enjoy staying in touch whether I am in the office or on the road. However, now I have had my husband, my best friend, numerous people at work and even my twin sister – who would be the last person to get upset with me – tell me that they have had enough. My girlfriend feels it is a pride issue, my sister thinks I am being inconsiderate of family, and my husband thinks I am just not able to find a good balance between work and non-work. They are probably all correct. I figure that I better start dealing with it before they all get together and plan an intervention.

Well, here is my progress report: I went almost 3 days without looking at my emails, then on the 4th and 5th I checked quickly and responded to just a few. So far so good. Today was the 6th day and I only handled one major issue but it necessitated a fair amount of emails. I am feeling the pull again so am planning to go cold turkey for the last 2 days of my vacation.

Key observation so far – skipping my emails is not the end of the world. I’m really not that important – and I am sleeping better.