Everyone says, “just write about your life”. Well, that graphic over there? That is my life right now. Okay, so Ryan is helping out more around the house than ever even when he would rather be with his friends, and Nathan is mowing the lawn now for spending money, and Kaitlyn came up to me the other day while I was wearing a shirt that reads “happy mom” (all lowercase on it) and correctly identified all the letters, and that’s what ELSE is going on in my life, but mostly? It’s email.
Those of you who follow me on Twitter or on Facebook know that I’ve been posting a lot recently about trying to achieve this mystical state of being known as “Caught Up.” That I’m trying, so hard, every day, to not just stay on top of the emails but to get through the ones I’ve already opened that need me to do something. But people, I’m losing the fight and I don’t know what to do.
Let’s look at Outlook as of today. Outlook is where I read the emails that come to elizabeth(at)table4five(dot)net, the professional address I use for this blog. As of right now, I have 255 items in my inbox. 39 are unopened messages. So that leaves 216 emails that I opened and did not delete because the messages relate to something I need to do. Like, a review I agreed to write or a giveaway I agreed to host. TWO HUNDRED SIXTEEN.
Clearly, I am way in over my head.
Solutions I’ve considered-
- deleting everything and starting fresh. Problem with that- all the people who sent me those emails who will think I dropped off the face of the earth, or will just think I’m unprofessional for never doing their review or giveaway.
- Hiring someone else to write the posts. Problem with that- how does someone else write a review for me? If I have to tell someone else what I thought of a product, I might as well write the review!
- Hiring someone else to read the emails and categorize them for me. I actually did that with Ryan this past year, when I was just so swamped. I may have to make him an offer he can’t refuse
And before you ask, yes, I do say No. I say No A LOT. Every day, every single day of the week, I get, on average, 150 emails to that table4five(dot)net address. As I’m typing this, notifications are popping up in the bottom right corner of my screen telling me that new emails are arriving. Two more people are wondering when their reviews will post, when their giveaways will start.
If I only posted one thing per day, I would have what, 8 MONTHS worth of posts? There has to be a better solution.
I’m guessing that everyone who runs any kind of home business where they still have young kids in the house is having this same problem. So please, SHARE. Tell me your tips. What would you do if you were me right now? How would you dig yourself out? I’m open to any and all suggestions.
And chocolate. Or ice cream. Or a hot personal assistant. You could send those too
I'm Elizabeth, a 40-something Michigan wife and mother of three. I created Table for Five in 2005 as a way to connect with other Moms, and I've been blogging ever since. Please click the About tab at the top of the page to read more about me and my family! email: table4five@gmail.com
Start with the oldest ‘thing’. Keep them in order of when you got them, and start writing. 3-5 at a time/day should get you down to a reasonable amount in no time! I had to just stop ‘other stuff’ for a couple of days to get caught up. It felt great when it finally did. You can do it!
Twitter: Table4Five
replied:
Thanks for the suggestion! Sometimes I wish I had two computers so I could have one that didn’t have Twitter or Facebook or any of my regular distractions on it
Elizabeth
Yikes. And here I feel lame because I didn’t feel I had the time/energy to do a monthly/bi-monthly canning class for a local mom’s group (between feeling like barf warmed over and my own gardening and canning to feed my own family this coming year/two years, yeah).
Have you already done the flylady type thing where you only spend so much time a day dong those things you *need* to so you don’t get distracted by the random/fun stuff? Or maybe some sort of prize for yourself when you get halfway through the giveaways/reviews – while temporarily saying no to new incoming stuff for a [short] while?
Twitter: Table4Five
replied:
Lanna- I like the idea of rewarding myself for getting halfway done. I’ll have to think of something I really want that I can actually afford
I haven’t done FlyLady, it seems sort of cheesy. But maybe it’s worth another look. Thanks!
E
I hear you. Email can be overwhelming at times. This summer, I cut back on my work-load. What helped:
-Figuring out what I could eliminate (for a while/forever). For instance, I stopped doing my “In Case You Missed It…” Friday posts. I let people know that I would resume them back in the fall.
-Figuring out what I could cut back on. (i.e. I’m accepting less giveaway and reviews.)
If all else fails, you can have a form letter that you send to people making new requests letting them know when/if you’ll be able to get back to them. (Honestly, I have some posts already scheduled for December…)
Hang in there!
Twitter: Table4Five
replied:
Kimberly- Seriously, December? I always feel like if I don’t work the review in as soon as humanly possible, there will be some PR person sitting in their office in Chicago or New York or L.A. gnashing their teeth and throwing darts at my photo.
Thanks so much for all your tips. I’m sure you are busy too!
Yikes, that’s a lot to deal with. I like what headless mom said, a lot. I would also keep brainstorming on delegating what you can. Get some help and only do the tasks that are required by you. Knock it out step at a time.
Then, and most importantly. Start developing a plan to train another you! You need to be able to replace yourself.
These are ups and downs of famous person life
There is no doubt that so many emails are not just spammy commercials but something much more important. Those letter you get are the living prove that you are very popular and your blog makes many people more happy. I know that it is not possible to answer them all, so don’t feel because of rejecting some of those. That’s just life. Or maybe rent someone who would work as email-answering-machine 
Im in the same load with you. I get thousands of email everyday but what I had to do is creating different email account so that i can control the spam. I also creat diffrent folders and reroute specific important email to folders. Than i scan the rest and delete them. it sounds like a lot but it only takes 5 minutes to do this.
Twitter: Table4Five
replied:
Alexandra- I appreciate your comment! I have set up many folders in Outlook, but my problem is, “out of sight out of mind”. I don’t tend to go back and look in the folders, which defeats the purpose of routing mail to them! I’ll tell you what has made a HUGE impact though- my blog host offers BoxTrapper. People who have never sent me email before automatically get a reply saying that to prove they are human and not spam, they need to reply back, leaving the subject line intact. It’s cut my daily emails down from over 100 to 15 or so. And if I’m missing any “important” messages? The people who really want to work with me will know to look for me other places online.