I recently upgraded my i-phone to ios 7, and I then received a message on my mail icon indicating that I had 8,742 unread emails. Oh my.
Yes, I do need to clean out emails. But these were all on my personal email account, so were mostly advertisements. Even realizing that, every time I looked at my phone the sheer number seemed to literally scream at me.
Suddenly my phone felt pounds heavier. I felt somewhat overwhelmed with clutter. My family knows I am a “bit” obsessed with organization, and this message seemed to say I was unorganized and a mess! I could barely stand it until I found an hour later that night to devote to deleting all emails. I am now down to 1,607 and feel better, but every time I look at my phone I feel unproductive. I cannot wait to devote time this weekend to get the count down to zero.
It used to be that a messy desk or overflowing files were indications of disorganization. But electronic communications have introduced all sorts of other issues.
Here at the Foundation, we face managing a mountain of information regularly. Retaining records, figuring out what to keep, organizing the incredible amount of information gathered over the past 25 years are an important challenge. And when you work at an organization like NCCF that maintains charitable endowments in perpetuity, there are some real storage issues to consider.
Nearly all of our records have been converted to digital storage. Our aim is to go as paperless as possible. We have a strong records retention policy in place that we actively follow. We have a “Green Team” of staff members who have volunteered to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint.
Now if I can just get rid of these emails . . .