Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Out of Control by Morgan Mandel

I caught part of the Dog Whisperer show on TV Tuesday night. Cesar Milan faced two dogs that barked uncontrollably. By the miracle of his calm presence and assertiveness, he gained control over them. That's because he showed them who was boss.

That's what I have to do with my e-mail. It's way out of control. I belong to a great many e-groups and I love reading the posts, but it takes me forever to get through them. By the time I do that and finish whatever blogs I need to do, I'm no longer in the mood to write.

So, I need to practice control and write first, then tackle the e-mails, blogs, and the like. Otherwise, I'll never get another book finished.

What about you? Do you have trouble getting down to business sometimes? What do you do?

Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com/
http://ourlittlerascal.blogspot.com/

9 comments:

Patricia Stoltey said...

I finally set up folders for some of my lists, groups, and newsletters. I plunk the e-mails in the folders and maybe someday I'll go read them, or maybe I'll delete them. It freed up a chunk of time.

Morgan Mandel said...

I'll have to see how to do folders. I was on Digest for some of my egroups, but then found out I was missing some interesting conversations, so I went on individual emails again. Wish I could do two things at once on the Internet. Then I'd stay caught up.

Morgan Mandel

Terry Odell said...

Funny you should bring this up. My blog guest yesterday was talking about ways to deal with things just like this.

Terry
Terry's Place

Helen Ginger said...

I'm on one list that I need to put on digest. That would help considerably. I do have folders for some that I drag and drop individual emails to. And I star things to get back to. Problem is, I get so many emails, the starred ones slip off the page and I forget them.

Helen
Straight From Hel

L. Diane Wolfe said...

I get out of control when I start taking on too much in general. There's a scary amount of my life beyond being an author and I own several businesses - some days, I just gotta learn to say no to some things or I go nuts.

Debra St. John said...

Oh, I hear you, Morgan. I've just spent close to an hour catching up on e-mail and posting to various blogs.

Unknown said...

Time is always a problem, especially when you are a slow writer. Since I'm in the middle of reading blogs -- which I think is similar to reading tons of email -- I thought I'd toss in my two-cents.

I set a given amount of time each day to read/answer emails or blogs. When my reading time gets too full, I prune.

Morgan Mandel said...

I see that I am not alone!

Morgan Mandel

Deb Larson said...

I feel overwhelmed most times. I only have a small amount of time to write and I don't want to miss a minute of it. So I write first, always.
DL Larson