avoidance isn't working

I spent a large part of Friday doing loads of washing and cleaning my room. The piles of stuff covering every surface had been making me wince every time I had to pick my way across the room for weeks before I could finally be bothered doing something about it. But, now that it's all tidy, it makes me happy just to be in my room.

You'd think I'd learn that it's good to be organised, but I'm still resisting applying that lesson elsewhere. I've been feeling overwhelmed and incompetent today and I think my lab environment is contributing significantly. My inbox has become a museum of guilt-inducing messages and my desk is covered in results and notes from experiments that I haven't written in my lab book and have therefore forgotten the details of. Instead of dealing with any of that, though, I've just become very careful about where I look.

I know I would feel much better if I were on top of my email and lab book, but the pain of dealing with 3-6 months' worth of things I've messed up and people I've let down is too much of a deterrent so far. I did reply to two of the most guilt-inducing emails today, but that took an hour of tear-filled angst and much encouragement, and neither subject is entirely resolved so I don't even get to feel good about my efforts yet.

Maybe I need a more immediate reward system. I want a brownie for every email I deal with, but there are 34 of them...