email

If you only change one thing in 2015 this should be it

Whether you’re a resolution-maker or not, it’s hard to escape the lists of suggestions for new tasks, goals, and ideas that sprout this time of the year.

Personally, I love resolutions. I have years worth of left-over lists, some kept, some not.

This year, I’m taking a new approach. I’m making just one resolution that I hope will have a positive impact on others: send fewer emails.

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If I had to name one thing I hate right now, it’s my inbox. Crammed to overflowing with conversations I don’t need to be part of, general announcements, and strings of people trying to figure out when to meet and where, I just about want to rip my hair out when I see that dreaded “unread” number creeping up and up and up.

There are gems of important information in there. Nuggets of real work. But it’s like panning for gold. Backbreaking, endless, tedium that occasionally yields a flake or two of sunshine. And I’m pretty sure the good stuff is buried just downstream.

I’ve had enough.

But if you really aren’t ready or able  to get off email, what are your options?

You can find lots of online wisdom if you google “taking back your inbox” and “how to manage email” but they tend to read like instruction manuals for a better gold panning contraption.

I toyed with this idea last year (way back in 2014), but I didn’t make a focused effort. I dabbled, I deleted, I tried to be disciplined. But I still reverted to typing three cryptic words and hitting send when I was in a hurry. Of course, those hurried emails bounced right back at me, asking for clarification, more information, or sparking a series of conversational notes.

This year, I’m getting serious.

My resolution to send fewer emails is based on these goals:

  • Contribute less to the mess.
    • Do I need to say this? Does it offer new, relevant, or helpful information? Or am I contributing to an e-conversation that would be better handled in person?
  • Don’t pass the buck.
    • Am I sending this email as a placeholder? To let someone know I’m on it? Or to send responsibility to someone else just to get a task out of my inbox? Is there a better way to complete it now?
  • Be clear.
    • Am I writing with a sense of purpose and clarity? Am I being complete but not overly wordy? 
  • Pick up the phone. 
    • Will this email generate questions and additional emails that I could handle with a phone call now? Is there an emotion involved that will come through better on the phone?
  • Walk down the hall.
    • Is this an opportunity to interact, make a connection, complete the task and get moving? 

I’m hoping that this one goal – fewer sent emails – will open up some space for the working and thinking we all crave. That’s where the real gold lies.

Here’s wishing you fewer emails and better communications for 2015.

The Inbox as Chinese Water Torture

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I’ve never actually had more than three billion unread emails, but close, pretty close.

It started so innocently….first one, then a few more, that thrill that you were needed,  you were connected, something exciting  was going on in your inbox.  Then – drip, drip, drip – they just kept on coming.  Daytime, night, weekends, vacation – drip, drip, drip.  And what seemed good or useful kept piling on until the Pavlovian reaction is less teenager-in-love-thrill and more make-the-torture-stop.

There was a point at the three-quarters way mark of a huge project last year that I actually did have 2,277 unread emails in my inbox.  Not three billion, but close, pretty close.

The first time I sat down to send an email, I had an address and a vague idea of what email was, but I had nobody to send a message to except my friend sitting at the terminal next to me.  We spent about 10 minutes there then headed out for food, coffee, people, something real.  I feel like I’ve been through the cycle of not having a use for email to email becoming virtually useless.  The important stuff is buried in the flood of newsletters, cc’s, people trying to schedule meetings through conversation instead of calendar, and the general chaos of people punting in the general chaos  that has more in common with a multi-team global soccer game with no rules than with actual communication.

Wikipedia lists “information overload” as the third problem with email (higher than spam, lower than limited attachment size).  So, what do we do?

In Germany, some lucky dogs at VW have their email blocked during non-work hours.  I think that’s better in some ways than trying to train ourselves to ignore, unplug, and ditch the habit between certain hours – but it’s really ignoring the real problem.

Email has become, in my opinion, fairly worthless but we lack a coherent alternative.  Maybe.  I see people opting out altogether (just a few brave pioneers, mind you) but maybe that’s the wave of the future.  Want to talk?  Pick up the phone.