January 1, 2015 — Email Jubilee

Matt Inman in right — Email is a Monster.

And lately the monster has been winning. I need a reset, a fresh start, a blank slate. I need an empty inbox.

And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.

What I need — what many of us need, I’m guessing — is a Jubilee. We need a new start for the new year.

So let us heed the words of the prophet Isaiah:

… proclaim freedom for the prisoners
 and recovery of sight for the blind,
… set the oppressed free,
 and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Let’s make January 1, 2015, a day of email Jubilee.

On New Year’s Day, I’m clearing out my inbox. Select all. Delete.

Or maybe I’ll archive them all to a Someday, If I Ever Manage to Get to Them folder. But in any case, as of January 1, I will have an empty inbox. And thus, as of January 1, I will have a new chance to maybe keep on top of my incoming email — a chance to read these things as they come in, to respond in a more timely and caring manner, to flag and filter out all the manymanymany lists and alerts and fundraising mass-blasts for fine causes or longshot candidates from long-ago elections.

Maybe this won’t work for long. Maybe it won’t work at all. Maybe it will just be one of those New Year’s resolutions that doesn’t survive past Martin Luther King’s birthday. But it’s worth a try.

I invite you to join me in this.

Olly olly oxen free. Come out, come out wherever you are. I call a do-over. Take a mulligan. Off-setting penalties, repeat first down. Etc.

Jubilee, in other words.

I need it. Maybe you need it, too. And maybe that’s OK.

So if you’ve sent me an email and I haven’t responded, I am sorry. Please forgive me, and please feel free to try again after January 1.

I will be trying again after January 1 — trying to do a better job of personally responding to the persons who email me (at slacktivist dot hotmail dot com) and trying to do a better job of not getting swamped under by the deluge of non-persons who have flooded my current inbox beyond repair.

Thanks.