Modern Business Life - The Blog of Author and Analyst Bradley J. Martin

I have recently come to terms with the fact that I suffer from something I like to call “Digital OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)”.  The realization came when I was cleaning out my email Inbox recently.  I had amassed roughly 1500 emails in my Inbox (some read, and some not), and I decided to take the time to organize my inbox. 

It was rare for me to get that many emails in my Inbox, as I am a believer in author David Allen’s method of routing incoming mail to the appropriate folders as fast as possible.  This keeps the inbox clean and move actionable items to an “actionable folder”, items to wait on to a “waiting” folder, etc.  So, purging and organizing my inbox was not the shock.  It was the realization that I actually took pleasure in doing so!  I was enjoying this organizing so much in fact, that I was disappointed when it was over.

This got me thinking… “Do I suffer from a Digital form of OCD or OCPD”?

Digital OCD Defined

Wikipedia describes OCPD as: “a personality disorder which involves an obsession with perfection, rules, and organization.“  I then began to think of what other traits of this I show with regard to the digital domain, and I was able to instantly identify the following:

• I reformat (not defrag, but REFORMAT) my computer once a month because I fear that it is running less than optimally due to internet surfing, demo application installs, etc.
• I spell check emails about 4 times before sending them (really…one should be enough, right?)
• I BCC myself on EVERY email I send to ensure it was indeed sent (no, the “Sent Items” folder is not good enough for me… although I think that this one may have derived more from CYA than OCD)
• I organize my desktop icons on a regular basis, ensuring that only the most important items remain on the desktop

Noting just the few examples above, I began to ask myself if these measures were overkill, or they actually serve some purpose for productivity.  Sure, keeping a clean Inbox helps you find emails faster, but should you really enjoy the cleaning/organizing part so much??

A Waste of Time?

While this post is only “half serious”, I think that it IS important that you ask yourself the following questions about your “digital habits”:

• “Are these practices actually doing something that will boost my productivity?”
• “Is the time that I save as a result of this action greater than that of the time I am spending on the action itself?”

If the answer to either one of these questions is “no”, you would probably do well to drop or modify that habit.  It may actually be semi-obsessive (or at least a time-suck), and not serving any functional purpose to enhance productivity.

Do you do display signs of Digital OCD?  Please post how… I’d love to hear about it!

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