Re: "Overwhelmed"

Plugd over at the Lamda Lab has been 
away for a while and writes that they 
are feeling overwhelmed by the volume 
of messages that have piled up in 
their absence -- and by their 
responsibility for the Elpher 
project[1].

In response to the question, "Has 
anyone else experienced this?" I 
certainly have[2], and I often have 
that sense of dread when I return to 
work after an extended vacation. You 
know that feeling when you open your 
email and there are 227 messages 
waiting? Or 352? Or 408?  

One year, a woman I work with came 
back from maternity leave at the same 
time that I returned from vacation, 
and she gave me some very good advice 
with respect to my collosal pile of 
messages. She said to sort them by 
sender, because some people only email 
when they have pressing issues to 
address, while others spam you with 
global emails. You know who they are.

To make a long story short, it worked. 
So well. Now, I sort by sender every 
time I return to the office. I can't 
say that I experience *no* dread when 
I go back, but it's greatly reduced. 

So I'd sort your long list of emails 
by sender, which should - I think - 
separate the mailing list from the 
individual senders. An automatic 
triage can be a very helpful thing.

You may be able to isolate the mailing 
list emails by sorting by subject 
header, since many mailing lists have 
a subject header that is at least 
partially auto-generated.

I hope this helps. 


[1] gopher://thelambdalab.xyz/0/phlog/2021-07-19-Overwhelmed.txt
[2] opher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/~visiblink/phlog/20210716