

Email: The Variable Reinforcement Machine - phsr
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001302.html

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AndrewDucker
I don't seem to have the massive problem with email that some people do.

Stuff arrives in, I deal with it, or get on with what I was doing.

If I want to arrange to meet a group of friends then multi-way email is by far
the best way of doing it.

If I want to exchange documents at work, email does it perfectly well (until
we get a CMS going).

It's not the only medium, but it's one that has many uses, and I'm not
planning on quitting it any time soon.

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tristan_juricek
His heart is in the right place, but I'm not so sure he needed to say "Stop.
Sending. Email". Perhaps "Stop Automatically Checking Your Email" would be a
better choice, since that's basically the recommendation at the end of the
article.

At my place, we've got the following formula: email + Dropbox + blog +
campfire + website system (based on Markdown) + damn phones.

I highly recommend Dropbox for sharing files, and the blog + campfire handles
the "broadcasts". The website is for documentation. All of these things are
free and easy to set up.

I could do less with the damn phones, actually. :) Most of the calls I get
would be better asked by composing a good mail rather than "oh, hm, you know?"

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phsr
I'm glad Atwood wrote a well thought out article, instead of the brief
rehashes we had been seeing. I suspect the shorter articles are a result of
StackOverflow DevDays coming up

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tokenadult
I deal with email. I don't consider email a burden, but rather a blessing. I
have more friends I correspond with regularly with email than I would have if
I wrote postal letters.

I like the reminder that research has shown that variable schedules of
reinforcement produce high persistence of response.

[http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/schedu...](http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/schedules.htm)

That's not intuitive, as Jeff points out, and it's a useful thing to know for
hackers who provide Web services as part of a start-up business.

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jrockway
"Sometimes you get spam or mail you don't want, so stop using email
completely."

No thanks. I learned to use email correctly, and it's a valuable tool that I
am not going to replace with phone calls or twitter.

