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This is the most hair-brained thing I've heard in a long time. Social networking rather than email? Insanity!

Chat yes. FaceTime, yes. But email leaves a paper trail. I suspect avoidance of some kind of paper trail could be a long-term problem for compliance laws. So something would have to take the place of having emails to track tasks and information.

This post has been edited by leicaman: 18 June 2012 - 05:36 AM

Start by turning off any alerts from your e-mail client. On a Mac, turn off sound and Dock bouncing. On iOS, turn off notifications.

Then, set your client to check every 15 minutes instead of every 5 minutes.

Finally, check e-mail when you have time instead of like a dog that hears a bell ring.

 kirkmc, on 18 June 2012 - 05:37 AM, said:

That is just part of the problem. Even if you don't check your email for an hour - like say in a meeting - what you end up with can be overwhelming. So much stuff and yet not all of it really relevant where you have to read, yet as the article mentioned sometimes just deleting those can take a chunk out of time.

That being said, the big problem is the "paper" trail and how email IS everywhere now and much easier to integrate than a text message. I think if text messaging can get easier to integrate (and yes, I know it is very possible but compared to email way more difficult) for some notifications as well as more central messaging board for a business, many business communications could flow better and more efficiently. Do this and more people stop sending needless email messages. Still, a long ways before we get there I think and I don't see email going away.

Don't forget https://podio.com/ This is a really an awesome tool...

Bollocks.

Would have liked to see the article look at Podio, as well. We dropped Basecamp for Podio because Podio is free. Maybe in another article about Project Management solutions?? (hint, hint?)

My e-mail isn't too terribly difficult to trudge through -- but then, a lot of it just gets ignored entirely, because I already know what NewEgg/Amazon/my bank/social sites/etc... are trying to say to me; as such, I don't feel any need to read those at all, unless I'm just generally bored. Automatic filtering is a wonderful tool, and it's built-in to every e-mail client and/or service I've used, for the past two decades or so.

Corrao doesn't need to get rid of e-mail; he just needs to learn how to use it correctly.

I'd love to get rid of email but considering how hard it is for some of my fellow employees to grasp even the basics of email and how that should work, I couldn't imagine how difficult it would be to implement something new.

Email is a tool, and like any other tool it can be abused / used for the wrong reasons / at the wrong times.

All these alternative systems have their own flaws and can overwhelm / become time drains as well. My first advice: no one in any company wastes even 10 minutes a day on Twitter or Facebook unless part of your job description involves social marketing or customer service via said mediums. Second advice: stop signing up for gimmick-services like 4Square and Klout. Are you kidding me?! Every single second spent on those two services is a waste of time for every business, unless you're one of the businesses giving out 4Square coupons / trying to drive people to your location. And good luck with that, btw.

Bottom line: the problem is not the medium; it's the people using it. You are either disciplined in managing your time, or you aren't. The end. Like the eTrade baby says: take the reigns, Frank!

Getting bombed with emails from coworkers you don't really need to talk to more than once a week? Send them a polite email, bcc your boss, and tell them the answers to their questions can be found in resources x, y and z (people or otherwise), and that unless it's something urgent you will not have time to respond to their daily emails. "And my door is always open, Bob!"

You do that with the half dozen worst email offenders, and you just cut your weekly mail pile in half! Next, turn the damn "check email" timer down to 30 minutes (max - 45 minutes would be better). This will allow you to avoid distractions and focus on the task at hand. While you're at it; have your phone dump calls immediately into voicemail unless phone time is one of your primary job tasks. Check your email and your voicemail and predetermined points during the day. Eventually people will catch on as they realize you respond at the same times every day.

And for small businesses email is unrivaled in terms of cutting through the BS and finding out how serious people really are about their intentions. Sure it's OK to have a preliminary friendly talk on the phone but as soon as it comes down to brass tacks, demand email. You'll find out REAL quick who has honest intentions (because they will put those intentions in writing), and who will try to worm their way into more phone calls and dodging email questions (because they don't want to put in writing what they don't actually want to commit to). Dishonest business people hate paper trails, even if email is not legally binding. Because it can be used and often is used as evidence in legal matters. And it often stands up as evidence, especially in business.

A world where all business was done by a wonky mix of chat and semi-public postings would be a nightmare.

Take the reigns, Frank. Email is not the problem; how you manage it and other people's communication habits with you, is the problem.

 kirkmc, on 18 June 2012 - 05:37 AM, said:

Then, change it again immediately to 25 or 30 minutes.

So many emails, even after you manage to slow down the worst offenders, are not urgent in any way, shape or form.
Everyone THINKS their email should be important to whoever they're sending it to, but the reality is unless you're working on the same project for the same boss, chances are good the other person doesn't care nearly as much as we do when we send it. Nor should they. Everyone has different priorities to answer to. THerefore, turn the frequency down and scan at regular times, then respond only to those which merit the use of your time.

 macnews, on 18 June 2012 - 05:56 AM, said:

And how is that different than logging onto a social network and being overwhelmed? Oh yeah, it's harder to work through because it has HTML "fluff" and doesn't give you a nice index view like email does.

Quote

A text message is just a short email that is typically confined to one device. Also, not better.

I agree that people abuse email, but getting rid of the good uses for it is not better. Educating the abusers is a better way. If they don't learn, you can always block them and send them an automatic reply telling them why. And well, if you want a good way to talk to a group of people to ask them a question, I hate to say it, but USENET was perfect for that, and it didn't have the bandwidth wasting fluff of social networking sites or online forums.

His proposed solution has just as much potential for abuse as email. And it uses for bandwidth, and it's more difficult to go through any correspondence.

The solution to overloaded email is to educate your employees to use the right tool for the right job.