I just spend the entire month of May documenting all of my internal and external communication just to see how cluttered my life is….
Ok, so not all of it, but I did look at all my snail mail, one email account and my cell phone. Just logging the information was absolutely exhausting. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to run a true exercise with my two other email accounts and my land line. The exercise also got me thinking about display, TV and radio. But I guess I am not that obsessive-compulsive.
As it turned out, I sent and received a total of 2,539 pieces of communication within these channels. Now for the real math:
* 15% of all of my communication was email spam
* 25% of my snail mail was junk mail
* 27% of my snail mail was direct mail that I deemed “relevant,” as it pertained to something I had requested
* Only .2% of all of my communication was personal snail mail (hey Mom, remember me?)
* If I were to spend 10 minutes on each and every communication, I would have spent 17 days doing so.
Take this for what it is worth.
My running goal (the one I never achieve) is to write personal letters that I snail mail to my friends.
Email is nice and fast, but real, hand-written letters do wonders at lifting the spirit when you see one in your mailbox.