The Clean Slate

Today I did something that would have been unthinkable for me a short while ago: I categorically dumped all of the email sitting in my inbox into a folder to think about "later," and I unchecked the "keep new" boxes on the hundreds of items I was keeping new in Bloglines. So, I now have a shiny clean inbox and a shiny clean feed reader. It's scary, and I'm consumed with guilt for some reason, but I feel lighter somehow.

The simple fact is that I hoard electronic clutter. Emails, documents, news items, web pages--it doesn't take up any space, right? I might need it someday, right?? It's just too cool to let go, right???

Wrong. At some point the material ceases to be useful and just sucks up my time and energy. I would never consider keeping this kind of clutter in the real world (I'm a regular shredder of paper material), so why do I keep it in the virtual world, especially when the virtual world is where I spend almost all of my work time?

The question now is if I can keep the inbox and the feed reader clean. We'll see.

WDT