The perils of immediacy.

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We could always say that letters arrived late or got lost in the mail. When the phone rang, we could have someone say that we weren't there (or perhaps not answer at all). One way or another, we could find passable excuses. But e-mail seems to have changed all that. Yes, there are people who don't check their mail throughout the day, but people who communicate with me know that I do, and that being the case, if I don't respond immediately to mail that they send me, they want to know what's the matter? Am I avoiding them? Or more precisely, why am I avoiding them? I admit that I often enjoy the fact that incoming mail allows me to jump from task to task, to feel that I'm attending to my tasks while not concentrating only on one of them. But sometimes (usually when it feels as though I'm actually doing productive work) I actually prefer to concentrate on only one task. And in situations such as that, incoming mail, even when the sender thinks it's urgent, can be problematic.

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Go to: Making e-mail ... useless, or
Go to: Really a part of me.