Why I don't get more done
Monday, June 11, 2012 at 05:58AM E-mail: a to-do list to which anyone can add.
In Beware Email’s Cunning Little Ways, Tim Hartford writes:
I recently heard a question that brought me up short: what does email want?* ... So let's list some key attributes of email. First, email, like the old-fashioned stuff that comes through the letter box, is an equal-opportunity system. Anyone with your address can reach you from anywhere in the world. ...
Second, email programs do, however, have their own priorities: they venerate whatever is new, placing it at the top of your inbox, highlighting it, and if you are not careful, interrupting you to announce its arrival.
Third, emails don't expire. ...
Fourth, emails provide a written record. This can be very useful (and occasionally dangerous) but it encourages your inbox to become your "To Do" list. ...
Email is also a system ... It is possible for an individual to opt out of such systems, but usually easier to adapt yourself than to adapt the system.
Finally, because email is very cheap and easy to send, there's a lot of it about. You may have noticed.
This is approximately the 20th anniversary of when I first began using e-mail on a regular basis. In 1992, after one abandoned attempt, I started to regularly check my palsdaj@vax1.msus.edu account that I was given by by a mentor at the local university. Always more visionary than I, Frank thought e-mail might be a big deal someday.
Oh for the time when I was sincerely disappointed on the days I didn't get a single e-mail. (LM_Net soon took care of that.)
E-mail has become for me, like many, a huge time suck. Despite my most valiant efforts to adopt a zero-in-box mentality, build good filtering systems, use canned responses to regular requests (Would you please share this on your blog?), and skim and scan most e-newsletter, e-mail takes up far too much of my day.
But I have to admit, e-mail is still as much a bad habit as anything, Rather than starting a legitimate task immediately, it's just too easy to check the damn inbox "just one more time."
Or check the GoogleReader feed. Or check Twitter stream. Happily, Facebook is not yet a personal addiction.
As helpful and informative as some of these tools are, I would also assign them to Quadrant IV in Stephen Covey's Time Mangement Matrix - Not Important and Not Urgent - but a tough change for natural procrastinators to make.
The other person I blame for my lack of productivity is Tyrion Lannister. Or perhaps I should say George R. R. Martin for writing the bajillion pages of his Song of Ice and Fire series in which Tyrion is the most interesting character. Despite its length, I am afraid it will remain my fix for weeks, months or years it will take me to read the whole damn series. What is it with these fantasy writers and volume?
Looking forward to seeing friends at ALA and ISTE in a couple weeks - provided I actually around to working on my workshops and presentations. If I don't, I'll be too embarrassed to attend.
* This comment inspired me to start Kevin Kelly's book What Technology Wants. So far, so good.
Reader Comments (2)
Great Post.
I think I could have a full time secretary just reading, organizing, summarizing, and replying to my email. I would guestimate I have to reply to approximate 70-80% the emails I receive. Of the 20-30% I do not have to reply to, I still need/want to store or have easy searchable access to it. So that leaves me about 15-20% of the that I can truly hit DELETE. With the onset of Google Apps - my inbox has increased due to Calendar invites, reminders, and other notifications. I am beginning to wonder...do I really need to be notified that many times? But on the other hand, I am thankful so I do not have to remember them all!
Email use to be a "sure way" to get a message across to my staff. However, I have noticed in recent years - most tend to skim - if read at all. Using subject headings like URGENT or YOUR REPLY IS REQUIRED helps - but if there is more than 3 or 4 lines of text in an email - you can forget it. I am sure they are inundated with many emails too. I think more users are becoming CC happy. There are countless times I receive emails and I wonder - why did I get this again? And then there are emails that do not pertain to me, but because I am on district distribution lists - I still receive - and have to skim to see if I am to respond.
I started marking my emails that I should store- or will have to respond - as unread. However, those unread messages soon fly off the main screen with the day's continued emails. One thing that helped immensely was our recent adoption of a district wide helpdesk. This is a life saver! At least I know all formal tech requests are being organized in another system. Now if I could just get everyone to use it....that would be great!
Hi Jen,
You always put things in perspective for me. I bemoan my business and then I read this and am simply glad not to be YOU!
I agree that my staff does not read and respond to email like they once did. My sense is most of my carefully constructed TechTips newsletters just get filed "for later reading."
No easy answers in this "info glut" as it's been called. Hope you do get some break this summer.
Doug