Wednesday, January 4, 2012

My Favorite Thing About a New Year - At Work



I'm not much for New Year's Resolutions. They never stick. Check out my post from last year, and you'll see what I mean. I did accomplish a few of my goals though: I did find a new church home, I did set up a new email account, I did take the girls to St. Louis on the train, and I've been better about the desk in the kitchen (not sure DH would entirely agree, though!).

That said, I do love the idea of a fresh start. What's better than a brand new notebook with sharpened pencils that still have their original eraser in its pristine condition?

In that vein, my favorite thing about a new year at work is that I clean out my email. I always start out the year so well! You can tell, because everything through about March is filed. Then it happens. I'm out sick, or we start a huge project or something makes me slip. It starts to spiral out of control. Pretty soon, I give up. I file the easy stuff, but anything that requires thought/effort/memory gets left in the Inbox. Things slow down a bit, and I try to be retroactive, but I never quite catch up.

I left on 2011 with 776 messages in my Inbox and 2,406 in my Outbox. (Ouch! I'm so much worse about filing sent ones.) But once the calendar flips to January, I move everything into folders. Last year's are called "Inbox 2011" and "Outbox 2011."

I love having an empty Inbox and Outbox. So what if I just did the equivalent of hiding everything in the closet? I feel better now. And I will continue to feel good about it. Until March.
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