Inbox Horror

I have 11, 102 emails in my email account. 9, 948 of them are unread.

When this happens the usual result is I make a brand new email and the inbox is sparkly clean and organized for maybe a month. Then it starts again. I sign up for something maybe because I want a coupon for my birthday. Or I get $10 off if I include an email. And the advertisements build. And build. And slowly choke the life out of my beautiful, squeaky clean inbox.

It's a vicious cycle that I've dealt with ever since my first hotmail account. I am so lazy I can't even maintain a virtual email inbox. And all it takes is like three clicks of a button.

But those three clicks... so much effort.

I own way too many notepads like this
and I still want more.

I bring this up because I've been creating a list for myself. I am a list person, I love lists. I love them because they organize and motivate me. I get the satisfaction of having everything expected of me listed in neat, bulleted rows (sometimes organized by ascending importance) and crossing them off as each task is accomplished.

Since I've started this, though, I'm creating lists for everything. An overall list turned into "A Yearly Goal" list and "Short-Term Goal" lists. And then subcategories of those lists turn into even more detailed lists. I have a list titled "Ways to Better Myself and I could probably break that down into physical and mental achievements.

Thing is: It's working. Or at least it's working so far. There are some things I'm still stubborn on and skipping. Such as the goal of exercising every day. Or learning a new word and writing about it every day. I skip these sometimes. Maybe I should create a reward system. I'll get a sticker at the end of the day/week for every goal I complete. Isn't that what grade school teachers used to do for like spelling tests?

I never had this many gold stars.

I hated those. A list of names with certain color stars. I never had a lot of stars. I usually had the blue stars. Blue for I didn't score high enough for a gold or silver (Was silver a B or C?) but the worst was going up in front of the class to pick out your designated color star and then placing it on the chart. My pathetically short line of stars compared to the ones above me. Sometimes if you scored too low you didn't get any.

Which is why I had less stars than everyone else.

So yeah, maybe a star chart. I can get my husband involved for whatever things he's been putting off as well. And then I can have more stars than him. Ha ha!

The point is, I've added a new goal which is to clear out my inbox. All 11,000+ of them. And I'm scared. A little excited too because I have a tendency to email myself story ideas, incomplete blog entries, and drabbles.

Now where to start?