Overwhelm and coming up for air

Book Review of Oliver Burkeman's "Meditations for Mortals"

AI-generated image from Adobe Stock

I had over 6000 emails in my inbox.

My email situation has been an ongoing source of embarrassment and frustration for years. Even admitting it here causes a small twinge of shame to bubble up from the deep recesses of my soul.

It seemed like concrete evidence that, despite my efforts to be an organized grown-up, perhaps secretly, I wasn’t.

After over 200 days in the hospital—yup, still here!—I figured I’d use the time to tackle some of these administrative tasks that always get endlessly shuffled down the to-do list. But, even with an abundance of time and very few distractions, I couldn’t seem to do more than pick away at the edge of my mountain of email.

Why?

I recently listened to Oliver Burkeman’s excellent book, “Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts.”

The best way to describe it is as a time management self-help book for pessimists. Rather than try to fill your brain with tips and tricks to help the reader manage the enormous list of tasks that fill their days, the book puts forward a very simple notion.

Your to-do list will always be infinite, but you, as a mortal human being, are finite. So how are you going to live your life with that information?

Burkeman uses the example of the overflowing email inbox in the book, which I suspect is why it struck a deep chord for me. Email is the epitome of the infinite to-do list because, no matter how many emails you delete, there will always be more coming in every day.

His advice?

1. Create a new folder for everything currently in your inbox.

2. Move all your existing emails into that folder.

3. Strive to deal with only the new incoming emails.

4. Pick through the old inbox emails at your leisure.

This advice seems hopelessly simplistic.

Won’t my new empty inbox just fill up in the same way that my old one did?

So, I tried it. I moved my 6000+ emails into a folder called “Tidy Box” and immediately felt my spirits lift. My inbox was no longer a repository of my secret shame that I loathed to face, but something that I felt like I could stay on top of—which, of course, increases the likelihood that I actually will.

This is the power of taking action. Every action, however small, acts as a little nudge to push us into the next action… and the next… and the next. The thing that mires us and keeps us stuck is the weight of inaction. It always seems like the thing we need to do is enormous, so we’re inclined not to do anything at all.

“It’s like driving at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” — E.L. Doctorow

Feeling more energized about dealing with my email, I began taking a deeper dive into the emails that I’d been archiving in all my little folders for so many years.

Why was I keeping them? Well, because I believed they might come in handy someday.

The thought brought to mind another insight from the book where Burkeman writes about the difference between becoming the type of person who takes the desired action versus actually taking the action.

He uses the example of the person who says they want to start a regular meditation practice. This hypothetical person purchases a meditation cushion, gets a subscription to the best meditation app and then sets the alarm for 6am so that they can start their day with their new meditation practice. Then, when their alarm goes off, they hit the snooze button because it just seems like way too much effort in the wee hours of the morning.

Contrast this with the person who simply decides to meditate for 5 minutes at whatever hour of the day however imperfectly.

One thought about taking action, and the other took action. Who do you think has the best chance of inching their way toward a meditation practice?

I had a similar flash of insight when I began sifting through my gazillion old archive emails. Was I the person who was going to read hundreds of old newsletters, or was I simply trying to be the kind of person who would read them?

Into the trash, all those emails went.

I also unsubscribed from a whole bunch of lists that fit the category of things that I felt I should be reading but have not been reading. If I needed to find this information later, I could simply Google it.

In any case, I highly encourage folks to check out Burkeman’s book and experiment with taking these kinds of small steps toward bigger goals. You never know where they might lead you.

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Athena is currently on medical leave from creativity coaching with Tilted Windmills while she heals in hospital, but hopes to be back to coaching in 2025. You can read about her ongoing rehab journey in Athena’s Art Newsletter.