March 26, 2014

Description:

Email Overload Disorder (EOD) is a condition of systematic email overload associated with emotional distress.

Cause:

Your ambition exceeds your personal capability.

Symptoms:

• You get more email than you can regularly process.
• You inevitably get behind.
• The email piles up. The best you can do is tread water, but for only so long. In the meantime, you emotionally suffer.
• Eventually the pressure builds so much you exert extreme action over a weekend or all-nighter and get back to a manageable level.
• Nothing systematically changes. The cycle repeats.

Notes:

• Your overwhelming situation may cause you to practice intentional avoidance. 
• Your extreme measures may lead you to be too tired to handle the new inflow the following day. You quickly get behind again.
• Your success at reaching a managing level may temporarily cause you to let your guard down. You get behind again.

Treatment:

A Personal Hackathon designed to clear existing email and systematically reduce inflow, repeated at least once a year.