Today both our internet and Vonage phone were out for about an hour. I am embarassed to say, but I was really at a loss for what to do with myself. I had a whole list of things to do, but after looking at it, I realized that they all related to e-mails, web research or calling people back home. Besides cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming, there was not one thing on my very long list of 20 things to do that did not require the internet.

Wow, what does that say about me and how our society functions? I recently read that the average business person checks their e-mail over 100 times a day. I think for Kyle (and I am sure many others) that number might be closer to 300. If you really think about it, that means that at least 100 times a day you are taking in information, processing it, figuring out how to respond etc. Yes, some of those e-mails are from the same people, but there is a good chance that at least 20 e-mails are from different people. In your mind you have to be able to instantly jump to what happened in your last e-mail with them, what they need from you now, how to respond to that, who to put them in touch with and on and on. It makes me exhausted just thinking about it!

And most every person I know has more than one e-mail address. That means even more e-mails to check and respond to! There is an audio program out there called You are Not Your Inbox that supposedly helps you "overcome e-mail overload". I know nothing about it, but was amazed (and depressed) to read the following paragraph:

Simple math reveals that we waste thousands of dollars and hours of productive time every year sifting through email that doesn’t contribute to our personal or professional objectives. In fact, if you spend just 30 minutes daily reading or responding to unnecessary email, that adds up to a full 3 weeks wasted over the course of the year. That’s more time than most Americans get for vacation.

Forget about wasting time e-mailing, I prefer to spend my time taking pictures of Charlie's feet instead.