
A Behavioral Economist Tries to Fix Email - shackenberg
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/economist-email-less-painful/518934/?single_page=true
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jaclaz
I always thought I was a dinosaur (and probably I am one) as I consder e-mail
a different form of mail, and since mail is delivered once (or maybe twice) a
day, I normally do check e-mails twice a day, typically as soon as I arrive in
the office and some half an hour before leaving it (in the evening only
replying to really urgent messages, that are rare, all others are replied next
morning).

It's somehow refreshing that the people that studied the issues deriving from
"continuous update" came to similar conclusions:

>Mark’s ideal system does allow for urgent communications, just not through
email. If workers need to contact one another with time-sensitive requests,
she says, they’d pick up the phone, send an instant message, or talk in
person.

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cuddlybacon
How do you handle something that is urgent? What if there is (just as some
examples) a short notice meeting or a person is blocked on what they are doing
until they get an answer from you?

At any company I've worked for email basically became the end-all-be-all
communication platform, except maybe idle chit-chat amongst small teams (which
generally use their own platform).

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Neliquat
Face to face or a phone call is best when you need to communicate quickly with
the ability to clarify on the fly.

~~~
Ntrails
I hate phone calls with a passion. I can deal with email in my own time and
personally don't find it causes a huge cognitive load to keep my inbox clean.

Similarly msn pings. I can check em when I'm not deep in thought or actively
working on a problem, or ignore that flashing for 5 mins until I'm done.

I don't understand the argument at all - a phone call is a demand that cannot
be ignored for any period of time, similarly an in person chat. Book a meeting
if it's important.

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setr
>a phone call is a demand that cannot be ignored for any period of time

Wasnt the grandparent's question about urgent communications... that seems to
me a very useful property

But I also have the opposite opinion; phone calls are _by far_ the best method
of remote comm to resolve something quickly. It hate people who don't know how
to pick up calls with a passion

every time I'm forced to resort to text or email, the 5 minute problem likely
is set back 30 minutes and half a day respectively; text because its a
terrible method of communication, and email because no one bothers checking
and responding in timely fashion

Fine if you're busy or otherwise unavailable, but anyone who comes back and
tells me they subjected me to such bullshit _on principle_ can burn in hell

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aqsalose
I'm surprised that people would assume that emails you send would get an
immediate response. I'd assume that very important stuff that absolutely can't
wait would relayed with an SMS / phone.

I use Thunderbird, have disabled desktop notifications, and check them maybe 3
times a day (once in morning, another time around lunch, and then the 3rd time
somtime afternoon). Or if I'm bored and have no more important things to do.

~~~
oceanghost
Wish I was kidding about this.

My VP once e-mailed me at 5:30am with a question. He then CALLED my boss
Director at 7:00am asking why I hadn't responded.

~~~
jkmcf
Something similar happened to me 18ish years ago, hours before I watched
Office Space for the first time.

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thebiglebrewski
Haha nice, good job he re-invented Gmail filters!

Sarcasm aside, I use filters for like, everything, so that the only email that
lands in my inbox is email that's important - and if not, I always proactively
filter it out or put it in a "reading" or other label.

However, I'm not as famous as Mr. Ariely!

Still cool research though.

~~~
cuddlybacon
I do that too. The problem is I have 140ish email rules. Changing them is
scary because it is really like changing a pile of goto-riddled spaghetti
code.

There are also things he listed that I don't know how to do in any email
client. For example creating a rule that will allow emails to only notify at
EOD. I'd love to have that.

~~~
thebiglebrewski
Interesting. Definitely some novel use cases to be explored here! I agree the
rules get a bit glass-housey.

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maherbeg
I've found Google Inbox to be amazing for my private email. Important stuff
gets a notification, unimportant stuff can get triaged as I see fit and
snoozed for later.

Now I wish I had snoozing for my text messages...

~~~
type0
> Now I wish I had snoozing for my text messages...

And I wish I had snooping for my gmail messages disabled...

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ajohnclark
Archive all? Fixed!

