There’s something about email that induces dread.  Logging into it I experience a kind of knot in my chest – a heavy feeling of not knowing how to start and then where to continue.  There’s just so much of it, and it keeps coming.  Sometimes it brings complex tasks and other times it’s just stuff that needs to be deleted.

I’m familiar with the GTD system, and have experimented with many different tools.  Recently I’ve gone back to ActiveInbox, but also tried IQTELL, a great system currently in beta. But with all these systems, email remains a chore.  It’s as if the medium itself gets in the way.

I could imagine a transformation of email that turns it into something like fun. Ways of making it flow more easily, and maybe giving small rewards.  Perhaps there should be a pie chart in the corner showing that you’ve completed 40% of your mail.  Or a way of changing it into a kind of game; a fight with a dragon or a treasure hunt.  Silly, I know.