I'm on email overdrive.

I had a bet with myself that I can go to bed each night with all my emails answered, organized and dealt with.  That was 5 years ago. Now its almost impossible to imagine the possibility.  My email neurosis has grown with technology and like a wild teenager it is overwhelmingly difficult to wrangle.  There are all kinds of programs to help folks like me get organized.  I'm guessing there may even be a 12 step program available to help people wean themselves off the addiction, the need to persistently get to the bottom of the list?  I saw a friend of mine who had over 800 unanswered emails.  I kid you not.  I think I may have stopped breathing when I saw that.

There are more than several studies about how adversely email affects our brains, our attention spans, our ability to communicate face to face. I haven't found one yet about someone who can't tolerate unread emails. I can't deal with the terror of all that stuff because I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME to read it all AND return my emails!  Just when I think I whittled those blue email dot alerts down to none, I hear that persistent alert only to find 25 more.  It's far worse when working on a project.  The number of emails in that scenario nearly puts me in my grave.  I wonder if there are email therapists out there that can help people like me? It's either that or a desert island with no cells!