The new rules of email

May 27, 2009
miproconsulting
Blog

Vinnie Mirchandani, writing about the cost of storage and how we should reduce email, nails what I’ve been thinking about for the past year: that today’s email is becoming marginalized and relegated to the dark corner of the internet reserved for full-on time-wasters. There’s a reason so many productivity gurus (Marc Andreessen, David Allen, Merlin Mann, Tim Ferris) suggest checking email only once or twice a day.

Just like many folks now remind you not to print their emails unless absolutely necessary, we should remind each other not to email unless necessary. And cut out the cc all, return receipts and other bad habits we picked up over the last couple of decades.

Email crossed the chasm quite some time ago in terms of its business utility, and since has gone, well, a bit insane. For most, email is a complete distraction with a very poor signal-to-noise ratio (not unlike standard postal service). If we hope for this to improve – and it has to, because email simply cannot go away – we have to make it easer for everyone.