Email Debt Forgiveness
The Burden of Unfinished Business
Do you have any emails or messages that you just haven’t responded to? I do. In fact, I have more than a few sitting in my email inbox right now. Some are from people I genuinely care about. Some are thoughtful messages that deserved a thoughtful response, but instead got buried beneath travel, meetings, deadlines, logistics, and the thousand tiny tasks that fill our days.
And the longer they sit there, the worse it feels. At first, it is just a small mental note in the back of your mind: I need to respond to that. Then a few days pass. Then a week. Then two. Eventually, guilt creeps in. What once felt manageable starts to feel awkward and embarrassing. Then somehow, even though it is just an email, it starts to feel too late.
Fortunately for us, there is actually a holiday designed to help. It is called Email Debt Forgiveness Day.
The “holiday” was created by the now-defunct, but award-winning podcast Reply All as a way to help people relieve themselves of their “email debt.” The idea is simple: on April 30th every year, you are allowed to respond to those old messages as if you were responding right on time. No elaborate apology. No three-paragraph explanation about why it took so long. Just a simple note saying something like, “Happy Email Debt Forgiveness Day. I know this response is long overdue, but I wanted to reach back out…” and then move on.
I love this idea because it feels like permission to stop carrying something around. Permission to stop making yourself feel bad, and permission to remember that being human means sometimes falling behind. I’ll say for myself, rebranding our entire organization has… put me behind.
The Burden of Unfinished Business
If I’m being entirely honest with you… I don’t entirely care if you have an empty inbox or not. When I die, I hope people don’t start my eulogy by saying, “Wow, Billy sure kept his email inbox clean.” I think many of us carry around the burden of unfinished business. Not just emails, but the unread books, half-finished projects, closets that need organizing, or dream trips we keep meaning to plan, and hobbies we swear we will get to once life slows down. We tell ourselves we will deal with it later, but later has a funny way of turning into never.
A couple of months ago, I shared that I had the chance to hang out virtually with the amazing author Robert Poynton, and he shared with me that “we write the books we need to read.” In that same vein, this is the newsletter I’ve needed to read at many moments of my life.
We live in a culture that rewards speed, responsiveness, productivity, and being on top of everything. But the truth is that most of us are not on top of everything. Most of us are simply doing our best to juggle work, family, friendships, grief, uncertainty, stress, dishes, laundry, and the million little things that make up a life. Sometimes things slip. And while I think Email Debt Forgiveness Day is funny, I also think there is something deeper inside of it. It asks us to consider what else we have been putting off.
As we head toward the summer months, I think this is an especially good question. Is there a trip you have been dying to take? A friend you have been meaning to call? A class you have always wanted to try? A book sitting on your nightstand that you keep meaning to start? A Saturday afternoon you keep promising yourself?
I think many of us have a tendency to delay joy. We save things for later. We save the nice bottle of wine, the expensive candle, the new notebook, or the fancy olive oil. We wait for a “special occasion,” but life has a way of reminding us that the special occasion rarely arrives on its own. We’re the ones who get to make the occasion special.
You do not need to host an extravagant dinner party to open that fancy bottle of olive oil that’s now collecting dust. You do not need to wait until your house is perfectly clean, your work is calmer, or your life is more organized to take that dream road trip (and if you need help planning a road trip, drop me an email).
You do not need to earn joy.
So let’s see if I can make this newsletter about olive oil and road trips somehow be about work: When we constantly delay joy, we can’t bring our fullest and most creative selves to work.
I don’t know what “it” is for you. Maybe it is art supplies, golf clubs, camping gear, a cookbook, a guitar in the corner, or a passport sitting in a drawer. What’s the thing that you just keep wanting to do someday? And what if someday is closer than you think?
What would it look like if you gave yourself permission to stop postponing just one small thing?
Maybe the answer is sending the email. Maybe the answer is booking the trip. Maybe the answer is finally inviting people over, even if the house is messy. Maybe the answer is finally using the fancy olive oil before it goes bad (if you haven’t caught on, I have the fancy olive oil that needs to be cracked open).
I am not writing this because I have mastered any of this. I am writing it because I need the reminder too. I need the reminder that unfinished things do not have to stay unfinished, that it is okay to begin again, and that we do not need to wait for permission.
So here is my challenge for you: before April ends, send even one email you have been avoiding. Before summer begins, commit to doing one thing you have been postponing. It doesn’t have to be the biggest thing, or the hardest thing. Just one thing.
Maybe that small act cracks something open in you.
I hope it does.
P.S. Want to join me in celebrating “Email Debt Forgiveness Day”? Drop me an email. I’d love to hear whatever thing, big or small, that you’re committing to…. And I promise I’ll email back :)
