Watch Out For That Tree…

George of the Jungle was a short-lived cartoon series in the late 1960′s. In the introduction to each episode, George would swing from tree to tree, and while smiling for the camera, would slam face-first into a tree:

This is what it feels like to come back from vacation to face multiple (work and personal) stuffed inboxes, a table full of paper mail, and a news aggregator with thousands of unread items. We said goodbye to Cabos just 24 hours ago and now reality is beginning to set in.

Even though I am officially on vacation until the end of the month, I need to switch back into work mode for a few days. I am presenting at the Second Life Community Conference this weekend and I need to create my presentation and make some changes to my travel plans. I also have a bunch of other work and personal items on my TODO list for the day.

As part of my personal inbox cleanup, I will probably unsubscribe from a newsletter or two. Being away from email for a while can give you some perspective on what’s really worth reading and what you’ve simply been reading out of habit. I’ll do the same for my feed list. For example, I’m already planning to unsubscribe from ValleyWag. After reading about 100 back posts last night, the snarkiness and the negativity really got to me.

Once I get back to the office on September 2nd, I will block off a day or two for cleanup. I’ve got another European trip coming up later that month and I also need to nail down travel plans, presentations, and so forth.