Friday Thoughts #5
From the comments on my post, email seems to cause angst to many people. I mentioned in my post that one of my strategies was to move the backlog of unread newsletters out of my inbox and into a newsletter folder. Oliver Burkeman, in his newsletter this week, recommends this tactic for any backlog. First, isolate the backlog. “After that, your top priority is not to clear out the backlog, but to prevent a new one accumulating, by attending to new incoming items (emails, tasks, whatever) in a steady and regular way. Only once you’re in the swing of that should you turn to the backlog itself, making it a modest priority to chip away at it gradually.” For a burgeoning to-do or project list, he suggests putting all the old items on a separate list.
Related: Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket.
I forgot to share a photo of the cool medal from last weekend’s Two Bays Race. Each year they choose an animal, and this year was a shark. It’s also a bottle opener.
I went down to the postal distribution centre on Monday to see if I could pick up my citrus trees. I thought they’d need the tracking number or something, but the worker just asked for my address and then went and consulted the hand-written list sticky-taped to a shelf. This low-tech process may explain why I didn’t get a notification that it was there and ready for pickup. A couple of minutes later, I had my box of citrus trees. They are all now planted and look like they should do well.
This is the bed on one side of the BBQ, which also has the herbs from my planter that I moved into here. The oregano looks like it needs tidying. I need to finish the underplanting on the other side of the BBQ, and then both those garden beds will be finished.
This weekend looks to be warm, but not beach weather for me. I got out for my first run since the race last night, and the legs were not too bad, so I’ll probably do a couple of runs over the weekend and hopefully also get some gardening done. Do you have weekend plans, or are you winging it like me?
7 Comments
Elisabeth
Ha – the irony of all this? I’ve recently gone through a HUGE purge of my newsletters and other mailing lists, unsubscribing like crazy. Then, after reading this post, I immediately went to subscribe to Oliver Burkeman’s newsletter. To be fair, it looks like it only comes out twice a month? But still…ironic 🙂
Melissa
Sorry?? LOL. I wouldn’t worry too much; this newsletter never clogged my inbox. I’m not sure how often they come, but it’s not that often and they’re usually pretty quick to read and process.
NGS
I refuse to do anything with my email except fret about it! Ha! Maybe I should just start a brand new email account and pretend the past never happened.
Melissa
LOL! That would be one way to go, although you would then have the work of notifying your friends and family of your new email address.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
Interesting idea with moving the entire backlog of email in one folder.
But now thhinjing about it I have done it other areas. Like my desktop files. Everyonce in a while I move everything in one folder, which sits theire for years and then I just hit delete…
Xour garden bed looks nice. Glad you found your trees.
Melissa
Yes, I need to clean up my desktop files. I don’t deliberately use my desktop to save stuff screenshots and photo exports automatically go there and usually forget to change the destination.
San
I am so glad you got your plants. It looks nice.