I cringe when I think of the practical wisdom buried in years of disorganized and deleted email exchanges.

I’ll send up a flare when I’m struggling with a deadline project and get quick help back from some generous soul who knows stuff I don’t. That’s a whole lot of souls.

Or I’ll get a ping from a student, journalist or first-time Thanksgiving dinner cook desperate for some career or craft counsel. The pleas pile up my inbox. I scan, reply best I can, hit SEND – then move on. As Jed Bartlett would say, “What’s next?”

Incoming, Outgoing. And over time, a trove of lost treasure.

Those one-on-one exchanges have immense value. They are immediate, specific and intimate. They range from the young reporter trying to figure out how to negotiate his next job, to the newbie editor who needs confidence handling big projects, to the hey-look-at-me! photo from a rookie reporter who got to mush a dogsled for a story and discovered that journalism can be a passport to an amazing and varied world.

But powerful as they are, those in-the-moment exchanges – I think of them as “teachable moments” or “pop-up teaching” – miss the power of compounded interest. It’s like I’m spending the same few wisdom dollars over and over, without capitalizing on the potential of exponential growth.

(I may have my investment metaphor a bit wrong, though I did check my terms (verification!) with John, the gorgeous young man sitting next to me at the breakfast bar at Louisa’s. He works in the import-export business, so knows a bit about numbers. Me being me, I found that out. And me being me, I peeked at the title of the book he was absorbed in: “Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey.” That led to a chewy conversation with him about Africa, King Leopold II, the rape of the Congo, Adam Hochschild, Paul Theroux, Detroit, documentaries about race in America and life aspirations. John’s is to teach elementary school. And especially to teach critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. Wow! This is the kind of joyous and unpredictable and enlightening encounter I wish for every one of my Baby Js. Hell, for everyone.)

Back to the point: I still believe, without apology to the MOOC passionistas, that in-person and one-to-one trumps in almost every human endeavor.

That was true for me as a reporter. I was good on the phone, but it never compared to being in the field, in person, in the moment.

I find it equally true in teaching. People tune in when it is most essential to them, and when you are most present for them. Everything I’ve experienced and read says that adult learning needs to ground theory in practice. We don’t really learn what we don’t need to learn right now. We don’t retain what we learn unless we apply it again and again until the lesson worms its way into our mental muscle memory. Just ask Olga Dorovskhykh, the patient builder of StoryLines, who has shown me multiple times how to post or find or move something on this site. I scribble a few notes, then dash off to the rest of my life – only to return a month later with the same questions because I haven’t practiced the lessons.

Yet none of that should exclude the value of compounded interest. Or fail to capitalize on the exponential power of the digital world.

Thus “Out of my inbox.”

This is an episodic experiment in sharing (we used to call it “repurposing”). I’ll edit and pass along exchanges that might find traction beyond the individual or the moment. With permission, of course. Some shares might thunk and die. But a few might spark a brighter idea or more effective approach, and come back to me in my own quest at learning.

Along the way, maybe I’ll become a bit more adept at navigating this site, and at tagging and categorizing for the cyber drones. Which makes me wonder why I can organize my spice cabinet and my carry-on luggage and my sock drawer, but my inbox. Hmmm …

My cyber-drawer is getting overstuffed with words, so I’ll leave this for now. Stay tuned for a quick story on that dogsledding discovery of joy mentioned above. But first I probably have to call Olga and ask her how to post pictures.