

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

======
SkyMarshal
TLDR:

 _1\. I’ve set up an autoresponder for my email that explains what I’m doing
and how to contact me and for what reasons.

2\. Twitter will be my main form of communication.

3\. For longer conversations, there’s IM or Skype chats. These will be
required to be scheduled, and are for friends, interviews or close colleagues
only — you’ll have to DM me on Twitter, and we’ll set up a 10-minute chat.

4\. For collaboration, I’ll use Google Docs and/or wikis.

5\. Friends and family can call me. Especially if they don’t use Twitter. They
already do, actually, so email isn’t absolutely necessary. The phone is better
for personal communication anyway.

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._

Sounds like more work than it's worth. Why not just learn how to use email
judiciously, turn off all Pavlovian-response-inducing new mail notifications
on your computers and phone, check 2 or 3 times a day, and continue to benefit
from email's almost uniquely asynchronous nature.

~~~
Groxx
I'm going to be highly biased and say that there are several things massively
wrong with that approach:

Twitter means you need a twitter account to communicate. IM means you need an
IM account with the same provider as them to communicate. Same with Skype.
Same with Google Docs (though this at least has an "anyone with the link"
option). Same with most wikis.

All they've done is say "Want to contact me? Go through closed platform X
rather than using this thing you're essentially guaranteed to have called
'email'". It's a massive middle-finger to anyone who doesn't have those
accounts; they're requiring they sign up, give away information, and will
probably abandon the accounts shortly after, just because they have an issue
with the word "email".

If they really wanted emails to behave like Twitter, set up an autoresponder
based on email length. > 200 characters = autoreply, explaining about length
problems due to volume, and resort to Docs if they _need_ more length (as that
has a public option). It's the best of all worlds, and you don't need to worry
about Twitter losing your old messages (email providers are typically _far_
more reliable).

------
timbonicus

      I’ve found that I don’t need to check Twitter as often, or spend as long
      processing it. It’s not an always-connected, always-communicating tool
      that some people think it is — you can choose when and what to process,
      and only do it 1-2 times a day if you like, scanning your messages and
      not necessarily replying unless you feel the need to do so. It will be
      another inbox, but not as tyrannical as email.
    

This sounds remarkably like email to me. I don't understand the difference. I
was expecting an article about ditching email-type communication entirely,
which I wouldn't dream of doing but would be an interesting experiment.

~~~
mfonda
As for ditching email-like communications entirely, it worked well for Donald
Knuth: <http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/email.html>

Perhaps one day I will try it out!

~~~
51Cards
Even he still requires email from time to time he admits, he just proxies them
through his secretary. I wish I had one of those myself to filter my
communications with the world. Then I wouldn't have email or anything. Just a
wonderful assistant who managed it all and let me be free to focus on other
things. I need me a Pepper Potts to my Tony Stark dammit!

------
elbrodeur
He took an efficient, even if inelegant, system and replaced it with 5
different services all with their own storage system, credentials and purpose.

That seems like a really terrible idea and a surefire way to increase time
waste. Could you imagine trying to find something quickly with a system like
this?

------
jmathai
Long term this sounds like a terrible idea.

What happens when you want to search for a message or attachment you got 3
months ago? Good luck via Twitter.

What happens when Twitter imposes some TOS that you don't like or stifles
innovation by closing their platform?

What about the fact that any 3rd party app you give read permissions to can
read your direct messages?

The list goes on and on.

I use Twitter but in the big picture it's not remotely close to being able to
replace email in the long run.

~~~
joebadmo
That's not even to mention Twitter's historically frequent downtime.

------
zacharycohn
I think the biggest problem is simply that Leo's making other people do more
work.

When you adopt a workflow that's out of the norm, you are forcing the people
who want to work with you to make a decision: 1) Make an exception in THEIR
workflow to deal with your quirks, or 2) Don't work with you.

~~~
joebadmo
It sounds like a deliberate decision to try to filter out some of the noise,
but, yeah, it does seem kind of anti-social or selfish.

------
krmmalik
I considered doing something similar a while back, but just like snail mail,
you cant avoid it if everyone else still insists on using it. I'm still
dumbfounded that i have to verify my identity via fax for some organisation or
by letter for government institutions. There's just no avoiding it.

its the same with email. How will he deal with verifying his identity with a
website that emails him the verification link?

But more to the point, if it's spam he wants to avoid, or people trying to get
his attention, he's not going to avoid that just by going to Twitter or Skype
or anywhere else.

------
radioactive21
It's about managing expectations. Go about emails with the mind set of
training people around you to work with your expectations.

Important emails get answered quickly, while every non-issue is trashed. Over
time this has worked out great for me. I don't get overwhelmed with emails,
slowly it has gone down as those around me understand my priority.

------
nhangen
This post is almost 2 years old.

~~~
vertr
It's hard to tell without a post date. Or comments.

~~~
nhangen
Yeah, I know. Really just more of an FYI thing than a complaint. As far as I
know, Leo still maintains the same policy.

Oh and while I hate the idea of going email-less, I had a chance to share
drinks with Leo and found him to be a great guy and a gentleman. Not sure it
has anything to do with the topic, but as a non-fan of minimalism, I thought
it would be relevant.

------
albedoa
There are so many things wrong with this even before you remember that you
need an email address to establish a Twitter account.

------
1010011010
Man becomes hermit, film at 11.

------
vertr
Babuta and other "neo-minimalists" are more dedicated to hyping up their
personality cults than actually minimizing. The TLDR by SkyMarshal
demonstrates this well.

The system to rid himself of email is more complex than optimizing his email
setup.

~~~
jschuur
Not to mention that the fact he probably gets more email than others is
because his very public personality makes him more desirable for other people
to contact him in the first place.

