Streak Day #12 Sucks (and some stuff about WordPress email notifications)

It’s still Sunday. At least when I started writing this. One nice thing that a writing streak does to you is it keeps you on your toes. Knowing I’m going to force myself to plop out something tomorrow I’m inclined to start on it as soon as possible. Even if I don’t actually start writing anything, I’ve noticed I’ll at least start to think about what I want to write about. I’m a horrible procrastinator but this impromptu project is forcing me into the correct direction.

Today is my drinking day. I stayed productive nearly all day long, taking care of all the random shit that I need to take care of on the weekends. I have no reason to be in a terrible mood but for some reason I am. Keeping busy only keeps your mind off of things; once you stop being busy your mind reverts back to all the old demons that always seem to haunt it and yourself. I built some shitty solar phone charger this weekend, posted the Morrowind chapter, posted a blog post, and even did my taxes (while drunk, which is always a good idea…) and now that it’s all over, well, hello internal monologue. I can’t wait for work tomorrow just to keep my mind fixated on tasks and to keep it distracted.

Anyways, what I really wanted to write about was my emails. Yes. Emails. It’s the stupidest topic to complain about but I have a serious problem with my email. Let me explain.

I receive email notifications from WordPress (this blog, the other blogs) on my personal email. Hell, I’ll link to it: write me an interesting message if you want, I’d love to read some random ramblings from people. I was even thinking of changing the stock “Contact” page on this blog to only show my email address; no one uses the contact page anyways so maybe an email address would actually provide feedback. Anyways, the way it’s currently set up (and I have no motivation to change the settings) is that anytime someone likes/comments/subscribes to my blog or one of its posts I get an email. It does keep me on my toes especially with comments. Anytime I see a comment in my email I make sure to leave it as a reminder to actually reply within the next day or four.

The problem is everything else. I’m a terribly fragile and insecure person who appreciates any and every like/comment/subscribe to this blog. This leads me to hoarding emails because I want to check in with every person who interacts with the blog. I want to scour their own blogs, read them, and see if I’m interested in subscribing. I’m serious: every email gets a big analysis project. Some are easy: people who like my blog that don’t have anything posted themselves get deleted instantly. It’s an easy filter to apply. But this only accounts for like 5% of all the notification emails I get. And the rest? I never get around to it! I can’t delete them because I haven’t given them due diligence yet, but they keep piling up. I constantly have a backlog of emails from readers in the form of notifications that I just can’t seem to sit down and sort through.

And it’s not like I have a wildly successful blog or anything. There aren’t mountains of notification emails pouring in day after day that I’m unable to keep up with. No, in the end I’m just a slacker to the worst degree. It’s mentally taxing to read someone’s blog and decide if I want to subscribe or not. Many blogs are okay but not great — like they have potential — and these always cause me the most grief. Blogs that have a multitude of spelling errors get nixed right away, as well as blogs that are about business or cooking or any topic that is really specific. If all someone writes about is traveling it’s easy to not subscribe; I’m way too poor to give traveling any sort of room in my head to fester.

It’s a stupid problem to have, but I think it’s good in a way. I’m not just deleting people who read and like my stuff — I actually care about their own projects — I’m just a total slacker. It is a constant source of stress for me though. Anytime I randomly click the Gmail app on my phone I have this terrible sense of dread and of being a failure. There are all of those emails I still haven’t scoured through and they’re only emails. Why can’t I sit down and just get it over with?

I guess the upside here to any readers: yes, if you ever like/comment/subscribe to anything I’ve written I seriously dig through your own project, whatever it is, and give it time in my head. I like to think of myself as a “genuine” person who isn’t reading your blog to “network” or to do any other service to myself. This topic does seem it could naturally turn into my thoughts about “networking,” something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, but you know what? That sounds like a great topic for tomorrow’s post. Stay tuned.