Mike – You said on your podcast that you have “tens of thousands of unanswered emails.” It’s not that I don’t believe you, but…really? Tens of thousands? How can you function knowing your inbox is that flooded? Aren’t you tortured by what might be in there? A job offer? A note from an old girlfriend? A letter from the IRS? The anxiety would kill me…
Candice Ramon
Hi Candace,
I’ve told you a million times I never exaggerate.
Ha! See attached.
PS.Personally, I find it harder to ignore an email once I’ve read it. That’s when it needs to filed, or replied to, or deleted. Easier to just let them pile up. There was a time when a few dozen unread emails kept me up at night, for all the reasons you mention, but then, when it became a few hundred unread emails, I started to realize I could never catch up. My email address isn’t hard to find, and being a public figure invites a lot of unsolicited queries. Also, my time is now a zero-sum game, so every moment spent reading an unsolicited email is a moment spent not doing something more important. (Like answering your question.)
Several years ago, when I tried to explain this to Mary, my business partner, her left eye began to twitch. Mary had glanced down at my phone and noticed 1,100 unread emails.
“Eleven hundred unread emails!! Are you kidding me??”
“Yeah, it’s a lot,” I said. “More than I can handle.”
Mary is a legendary multitasker. I’ve seen her read an email and send a text at the same time – often while drafting a contract and running a Zoom call during a lunch meeting. This is a talent I admire, and benefit from a great deal, but do not envy.
“How can you possibly have eleven hundred unread emails?” she said, eyes bulging. “On your business account! What’s your Follow Up File look like?”
“My Follow Up File? What’s a Follow Up file?”
“What do you mean? How do you not know what a Follow Up file is?? It’s the most important file there is!!!”
“Well,” I said, “if I don’t read my emails, there’s really nothing to follow up on, is there?”
It was at this point Mary’s right eye began to twitch, so I quickly changed the subject, and got one of those privacy screens for my phone.
From a business perspective, I understand her exasperation with me. There were probably some legitimate opportunities buried in those eleven hundred unread emails, along with some other interesting…offers. Today, with 39,218 unread emails, I suspect there’s even more. And by the end of this year, when I expect to cross the 50,000-threshold, (hey, it’s important to have goals!) I guess they’ll be more still. But again – in a zero-sum game, every new opportunity means that Mary has to walk something else behind the barn a shoot it. So, what’s the point?
As for old girlfriends and the IRS, I suspect either will find me, if it’s really important. The bigger question, obviously, is what will happen to the rest of Mary’s face if she sees this?