If the prospect of putting a line through the final item on a lengthy to do list is close to nirvana, then you're probably trying to deal with inbox anxiety, that constant battle to keep your email under control.

I'm with you. The number of unread items in my email inbox steadily grows mocking me, like my own person national email debt clock. Although I haven't had to make any bailouts (Select All > Delete). Yet.

The fact that everyone in your social circle has found numerous and ingenious ways to multiply those neuroses through social networks with their alternate inboxes, direct messages, pokes, walls and who-knows-what next, there's no way of keeping up.

As Dolly Parton puts it, "islands in the stream, that is what we are". It's a case of letting the social river drift by, dipping a virtual toe into the stream from time-to-time and trying not to get anxious about what's just floated by - let's stretch the metaphor - whether a pretty little fishy tidbit or something decidedly unsanitary.

Don't feel bad. There's not much that can be done without resorting to technology, which hasn't quite progressed to the point where it'll know whether to reply immediately, fib about a deadline or quietly ignore a friend request (don't pretend you haven't done it).

Don't believe me? Check out the numbers on this social media equivalent of the debt clock by web & TV clever clogs, Gary Hughes...

It's disturbingly mesmerising, which is more than be said by some of the bilge in my inbox. Better get back to it, won't delete itself now, will it?

Picture courtesy of Rafiq Phillips. Some rights reserved.