Mailboxes
I created a new e-mail folder today, for a certain person. Sometime in the past couple of weeks I stopped wanting to file his e-mails under "Friends." Being uncertain what would transpire, however, I simply left his e-mails in my inbox, read, but not filed. This morning, I decided they needed a file.
Does anyone else do that? Does anyone else use their inbox to reflect the organization of their personal life?
When I was trying to establish an independant line of communication with YankeeLady, I created a mailbox for her, and e-mailed her to commemorate the occasion. I looked in her mailbox today, while creating the new one; there are about nine e-mails, most from the time after the Rapscallion dumped us both. So I filed her under Rapscallion, which is a totally unfeminist thing to do, but it's the only context in which I interacted with her, and the Rapscallion certainly colours any interaction we might ever have again. Besides, I don't anticipate receiving further e-mails from her.
Maybe I need to move old folders off my computer, to some remote storage. They take up space, cluttering my e-mail client. But it feels very wrong to have folders for Former Friends (now out of touch), Former Friends (who should be feed to toothy eels), Romantic Misadventures (completed), the way I have one for Clients Dropped or Lost. Somehow that feels like, I don't know, organizing things based on the losses and failures. I don't know how it's less depressing to have all these unused mailboxes with the names of people with whom I no longer maintain an active correspondence staring me in the face every time I check my e-mail, though, and at least if I grouped them, they'd all be tidily in one place, awaiting transfer to a backup, and deletion from my hard drive.
There's an aphorism in there, somewhere, about life being more complicated than computers, and about learning experiences, but you know what? I'm going to leave that as an exercise for the reader.
EDIT: The new mailbox makes me quite happy, incidentally. And, for the most part, I look at the list of file names and the ones that are not completely boring (Job Hunting, House Hunting, and the various work-related folders being examples of completely boring), reflect the people and things in my life that are important to me, and make me happy. It's a good thing to have categories in one's life for Dancing, Singing, Friends, Grammar, and lots of wonderful people.
Does anyone else do that? Does anyone else use their inbox to reflect the organization of their personal life?
When I was trying to establish an independant line of communication with YankeeLady, I created a mailbox for her, and e-mailed her to commemorate the occasion. I looked in her mailbox today, while creating the new one; there are about nine e-mails, most from the time after the Rapscallion dumped us both. So I filed her under Rapscallion, which is a totally unfeminist thing to do, but it's the only context in which I interacted with her, and the Rapscallion certainly colours any interaction we might ever have again. Besides, I don't anticipate receiving further e-mails from her.
Maybe I need to move old folders off my computer, to some remote storage. They take up space, cluttering my e-mail client. But it feels very wrong to have folders for Former Friends (now out of touch), Former Friends (who should be feed to toothy eels), Romantic Misadventures (completed), the way I have one for Clients Dropped or Lost. Somehow that feels like, I don't know, organizing things based on the losses and failures. I don't know how it's less depressing to have all these unused mailboxes with the names of people with whom I no longer maintain an active correspondence staring me in the face every time I check my e-mail, though, and at least if I grouped them, they'd all be tidily in one place, awaiting transfer to a backup, and deletion from my hard drive.
There's an aphorism in there, somewhere, about life being more complicated than computers, and about learning experiences, but you know what? I'm going to leave that as an exercise for the reader.
EDIT: The new mailbox makes me quite happy, incidentally. And, for the most part, I look at the list of file names and the ones that are not completely boring (Job Hunting, House Hunting, and the various work-related folders being examples of completely boring), reflect the people and things in my life that are important to me, and make me happy. It's a good thing to have categories in one's life for Dancing, Singing, Friends, Grammar, and lots of wonderful people.