Email Catch-22

I ~~love~~ loved email. Now I think it may be the death of me. IMO email has gone out of fashion. Lately when I look in my Gmail inbox, I'm a deer in the headlights. I try to reply to everyone who writes me, but, at the same time I don't want to spend my whole life writing emails. Popularity is a Catch-22 and I think way too fast to get it out on a keyboard sometimes—I'm no email machine.

4500 EMAILS RECEIVED in the last year. in:inbox = 30 percent. in:trash = 70 percent. 2 emails sent per day on average. in:sent AND subject:"RE:" = 450 emails = 10 percent. 770 EMAILS SENT in the last year. — The image above is based on the numbers in my Gmail over the last 365 days. For every 10 emails that I received, I deleted 7, I saved 3, and replied to 1. Of course some of those incoming emails were confirmations and newsletter bullshit. Then there's the opposite—the few awesome ones that make it all worthwhile.

I'd rather focus my free time on writing articles than emails. I'd rather write articles that come out of my own head than ones that get pushed onto me. I'd rather deliver unexpected awesomeness than predictable mediocrity. I'd rather make cars than faster horses. I prefer to meet people in person. I'd rather break ideas than news.

Even more so from now on, my promises to you as a writer are raw awesomeness and total transparency. The email generation is dying because emails are not drugs. There's plenty of art and knowledge to take in outside of the inbox. Beam me when think-to-text technology is available.