I am reminded of that famous line from the trashy classic, ‘Robocop’: ‘You have twenty seconds to comply’. Except in this case, it’s: ‘You have twenty minutes to reply’. After that, you know that new email you’ve just received is getting knocked down the list in your inbox.
I went into business for myself just a few years before email became the norm. For anybody who’s popped up after that, I can tell you that since it started being used regularly in business, communication has sped up immensely. And the postal and courier industries have taken a real kicking. How many of you remember when we used to write letters? I don’t just mean forms, or invoices or postcards, but actual letters.
Don’t worry, I’m not getting all misty-eyed – although I do miss receiving the odd, personal, hand-written letter. And writing them too . . . sitting down of an evening, taking time to compose your thoughts; the pleasure of using a good pen on quality paper. 
I was quite an accomplished letter-writer in my time, don’t you know.
Anyway, we can get things done far faster than we used to, but in a fine piece of irony, I seem to have less time as a result. Back in the nineties, emails, ISDN and broadband revolutionized the transport of artwork. You still had to send couriers out to deliver the big stuff – original artwork or just a file on a CD. But back when I was still working part-time as a commercial artist to fund my writing habit, I probably got as much writing done each day as I do now. Possibly more.
Part of this is down to me being established longer, having more contacts, and more people contacting me. But it’s also the nature of emailling.
When you get an email, you know the person has just sent it, and they know it has already arrived in your inbox. So any delay is down to you, not the means of delivery. Or even worse, you get that little pop-up telling you ‘The sender of this email wishes to be informed when you have read this message. Is this okay?’. No, it’s not okay – sod off!
I pride myself on being professional – getting work done to the deadline, treating people with courtesy . . . and responding as promptly as I can when somebody contacts me. But I have to get work done too.
People want to contact me, mostly because of my work. But sometimes I struggle to get work done, because I’m trying to stay in contact with people. The emails come in, and pile up, and each one represents a person waiting for a response. They know that email has arrived, and they’re pretty sure that I know. And I’m conscious that they know, and that they’re waiting. Except they might not be. They could have sent the email and then left their office, or turned off their computer, or gone to lunch.
I have to tell myself that they just have to wait until I’m ready. I close the email down, promise myself I’m only going to check it a couple of times a day, but there’s that one really important one I’m waiting for. I’ll just open it up, and if that one’s there, I’ll respond, otherwise . . . Shit, now there’s loads coming in. Oh, hang on, this one looks urgent . . . okay, this’ll only take a minute . . . Jesus, there’s a lot to do . . . what was I doing? Why can’t I think straight? Man, I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight until I get some of this stuff sorted out . . .
Twenty minutes later, I get back to work, having answered a few other impatient-looking little buggers in the inbox while I was there. But now I’m fully aware of the emails I still haven’t answered. I try to find that train of thought I’d left blinking in the cursor at the end of the last line I’d written in the story I’m working on, before I got distracted . . .
Hmm . . . trains. Maybe that’s what I should do: timetable my email access. Set it up to shut down at set periods of time. That would sort it. ‘Sorry mate, you missed your slot’. Get my discipline back, get back to writing for long stretches, undistracted, undisturbed. I need a handy piece of software to help me control this other handy piece of software. Yeah, a programme to help me manage my time better. That’s what I need. If I can just find the gizmo that will organize my contacts with the outside world better – give me more time to write. Would it be simpler if I got a Facebook account, and did everything through that?
Which reminds me – I haven’t posted a blog in a while. There’s a bunch of thoughts I’ve been meaning to write up. Must find some time for that today.
