

Killing Email: How and Why I Ditched My Inbox - oscardelben
http://zenhabits.net/2009/07/killing-email-how-and-why-i-ditched-my-inbox/

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jacquesm
I work a lot with people in different timezones, email is nicely asynchronous
and that is why I think it will be with me for a long long time.

I got rid of IM though, that was simply too much of a distraction, so much
'stream of consciousness' because of the too-low barrier that it becomes
overwhelming. Email has just the right barrier of entry to me, it is
relatively cheap for me to check and a lot of work on the part of the sender.
If I'm not interested the cost is near 0, if I'm interested it can go quite
far.

Also, for anybody in bussiness for themselves not checking email is a limiting
move imo, snappy response to email is very much appreciated by customers and
collaborators alike.

~~~
jedc
I completely agree with IM; I avoid it if at all possible. There's too much of
a time lag between responses so it seems slow, but because it's live it's very
hard to turn my attention away. Email I can at least deal with on my own
terms.

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enneff
If a so-called productivity expert has problems with "checking email multiple
times a day, of responding over and over throughout the day, deleting spam and
unsubscribing from newsletters and unwanted notices, filtering out messages
and notifications, deleting those dumb forwarded jokes and chain mails" then
they might want to consider a career change.

I've been using email for 20 years, and I only receive work-related mail (that
I read at appropriate intervals to my workflow), the occasional personal
email, and specific automated emails that are filtered to specific folders
(where I can give them attention when I need to). I never receive chain mail
or stupid jokes, because I don't deal with the type of idiots who send that
kind of stuff. Those who _did_ send me that sort of stuff were told in no
uncertain terms that I'm not interested in it, and it stopped immediately
(this doesn't mean I was nasty about it, though).

I almost choked laughing when he said he was ditching email for Twitter.
Twitter is possibly the least efficient and reliable Internet-based
communications medium. And I say this as someone whose profession is software
to make greater sense of that medium. Was this piece meant to be satire? It
just seems ridiculous to me.

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jrockway
I stopped reading after he said he replaced email with Twitter.

~~~
pmichaud
I saw that coming when I read the headline, but I have to say that at least
one thing is really compelling about the switch: people have to be concise.
When people have to be concise they put more thought into

1) The communication itself 2) Whether the communication is even necessary

That is a positive.

~~~
tetha
On the other hand, you cannot compress all messages into 140 characters.
Recently, we had to setup some buildfiles in this university project and after
a while, things grew pretty weird, so we started to exchange informations
about what I had done, what I thought that meant and so on. There is no way
this information would be transmitted better via 28 140-character-twitter
messages or something else. In this case, a nice well-formatted email with
each step in a paragraph was the best way to communicate this and it worked
very well.

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Torn
Except, he hasn't ditched email at all.

 _6\. A few types of emails will get through for now. My filters allow emails
for advertisers, interviews, refunds, and people who want to hire me, to get
through to my inbox [...] I’m working on automating these processes via the
web_

Even if he 'automates processes via the web' that's _still_ having to spend
time to read, process, and deal with text content sent by others. Rather than
ditch email, he seems to have put forward a plan for receiving less of it.

~~~
derefr
> ...having to spend time to read, process, and deal with text content sent by
> others.

Not doing so wouldn't be ditching _email_ , that would be ditching
_communication_.

~~~
Torn
That's completely in-line with my point -- that 'ditching' email isn't
necessarily getting rid of the time and effort involved in dealing with
others' communication

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swaroop
So he's giving up one inbox (email) for another (twitter)?

It's going to be an interesting experiment because people are not really
expected to reply back to every message on Twitter, so will people get ticked
off if Leo doesn't reply to tweets?

If Leo had instead responded only to really important emails and not every
single email, would he have achieved the same results?

I hope Leo posts an update on the same two months from now, would like to see
if he has indeed _got rid of inboxes_ (irrespective of whether it is email or
twitter)

~~~
jacquesm
I think he's too obsessive about his inbox, whatever it is to make it work. If
you can't deal with your email inbox then I don't see how switching to another
kind of inbox is going to solve the problem. It's a self discipline issue,
there is absolutely nothing wrong with email, if used well.

Prioritization would go a long way to getting the problem solved.

Stuff that's urgent I take care of when it reaches me, stuff that is to be
taken care of goes on the back burner until I have a spare moment, some stuff
I never get around to. That's life. It applies to just about everything from
maintaining a house to managing your communications.

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jsz0
I guess I'm old fashioned. I like e-mail. I like having everything collected
together in one spot. I like being able to make one set of filtering/sorting
rules. I like being able to segment my communication into work & personal
e-mail addresses. It seems to me this strategy simply pushes stuff around to
new places. I can't imagine dealing with Twitter, increased telephone call
volume, more IMs, etc actually makes things easier but it's a personal choice.
Probably depends a lot on what type of people are contacting you and what
exactly they want.

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hbien
I wish I got email - that is, instead of phone calls.

People still call me for non urgent items, like calling me on the weekend to
remind me to do something on Monday.

Even worse, phone calls with list of feature requests and bug reports. I'd be
so happy if these were all written down in an email - even better if they were
entered directly into the bug tracker.

~~~
pmichaud
You need to stop that. You teach people how to treat you. You've obviously
been a bad teacher 8)

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extension
I'm not a big fan of email but replacing it with a hodge-podge of trendy,
proprietary services is a terrible idea. We need to consolidate communication,
not fragment it more than it already is _cough_ googlewave _cough_.

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JacobAldridge
Interesting, and for the most part sounds feasible.

But for me, I'd rather check my Inbox than Twitter.

And I'd rather people emailed me than called me, since most of the time they'd
get a voicemail which I would have to pay to retrieve, and then I'd call them
and it wouldn't be convenient, and then ...

And while some things (think long discussions) are done better verbally than
by email, there's a lot of other things (like Reports from clients, or my
global office) for which email is the only alternative to actual mail (since,
and again this is for me, the chances of any of them diving into Google Docs
or Wikis in the next 3 years is negligible).

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edw519
This is _exactly_ the opposite of how I operate.

I love email. Why? Because I'm a programmer and I don't want to be
interrupted. I like to keep the day-to-day things simple because my work is
anything but simple.

I use gmail and everyone I know has my gmail address. It has excellent spam
filters and it's easy to manage. Best of all, it never bothers me. When I'm
ready for a break, I check and manage my email. It takes 5 minutes, just
enough time to eat an apple.

Family, close friends, and some business associates have my cell phone #. They
know not to text me because if I'm working, I will not respond. If I'm not
working, the only response they'll get is "ok". If the phone rings, I know it
must be important to talk. Usually not for long, then back to work.

I do not IM. I do not Twitter. I can't imagine worse ways to ruin
productivity. I IM'd for 3 days. I got nothing done, so I emailed everyone to
never IM me again. Email me and I'll respond when I'm available.

I surf my favorite sites (especially hn) during breaks. When the break is
over, on go the headphones and up comes my text editor. See you in an hour or
two. Not before then.

~~~
unalone
Do you use Gmail's chat, perchance? It's a nice way to quickly talk to those
folks who use Gmail too.

How do you enforce your breaks? I'm still trying to beat some self-discipline
into me.

~~~
edw519
I make no distinction between Gmail's chat and any other chat. I don't use
them. For 99% of my communication, email is fine. For anything more urgent, I
prefer the phone.

I don't "enforce breaks". My body lets me know when it's time. My critical
path is usually eyestrain, but it could be anything.

"I'm still trying to beat some self-discipline into me."

Don't. You can't win that battle. Even if you do, it will only be temporary.

I look at it completely differently. I absolutely love what I'm doing so much
that I have to pull myself away for breaks.

Do you love what you're working on? If so, discipline will never be a problem.
If not, then why not? Solve that problem and discipline will never be a
problem. Either way, discipline is never a problem. Working on the right thing
and devouring it is the solution.

You don't worry about enforcing discipline when you're eating a great meal,
partying, or having great sex, do you? Find a way to make your work like that
and you'll never worry about it again.

~~~
unalone
When I follow my own work schedule, I am very erratic. I've got days of
nonproductivity followed by spurts of genius. I'd like to get to be able to
work even when I'm not completely in the zone.

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robryan
Twitter also allows more ability to get distracted than the averages persons
email inbox. At least with email everything is directed at you.

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tybris
I have a 1-2 weeks response time for most things. Works great to limit the
stream.

