If you’re trying to clean up an email inbox, going from 3,120 to 3,100 feels a lot different than from 20 to zero.
Why? It’s the same number of emails to sort through, file, or, likely, delete.
It’s different because there’s a reminder that won’t go away.
In this case, the “3” in the front keeps telling us a few things:
- How much work there is to go.
- How far we’ve let this get away from us.
- That this transformation we seek may not even happen…
There’s two things we can learn here I think.
The first is that it’s a lot easier to stay focused, and keep ahead of some things and not get to the point that we have 3,000+ emails.
The second, is that there’s an art in learning to “ignore.”
If we can “ignore” the fact that there are 3,100 more emails to go, we can get on with our work.
Yep, this path, like small business, or learning to run a marathon, is arduous.
But stewing on the number in the front isn’t going to make things any easier.
