I will try to not let my bias not persuade me too much, but I don’t really like email much. It is so slow to digest the information contained, so many emails don’t have good content, or are spam, or are forwards, yucky.
Yet, email was once a breakthrough in silent, speedy, low-cost communication technology that so seamlessly fits into the information worker’s day. Today other technologies are better at the silent, speedy, seamlessly, low-cost information exchange, like Atom, wiki, social bookmarking and RSS. Consequently many experts are saying email cost the economy about 650 billion in lost time, actually some say quiet more than that.
A cnet article quoting Carl Honore research, concluded that the average office worker is interrupted every three minutes (email, IM, phone, other office distractions) and that it takes eight minutes to recover. So that means very little is being done in the untied states, especially when compared to nations like Japan, India, and a host of others. The cnet article also concluded that companies are coming up with simple ways, custom software, unique project management and sometimes non-technical ways to tackle the information management issues of this phase of the information age.
Furthormore, PC World publish a comical, but serious article about having email addiction and steps to help defend and wart off addiction. Appearly some 11 million people, doctors have labeled as having some type of health recking email habits.
Way am I writing this post, other than because I don’t like email. Well largely it’s due to one factor in my life, which is, I now realize time is constantly working against me, time is not my ally. Here at Sephone, always working to try to squeak out more, also I’m writing an application with a friend outside of work, teaching a class that requires hours of study a week, and I am always looking for more time to spend with my wife. Just seems like time is a continuous opponent, that needs to be properly rendered, or it because evil.
Okay, I think I am really going to make a point, I am working my way to it. My point is this, time is precious, both at work and elsewhere. Things like email are great tools, just make sure that you have control over the tools, and your tools don’t have control over you. If you instance have read an email as soon as you get it, you are a slave to your inbox. If you often purposely look at your email while you are in the middle of something else, you are a slave to your inbox. Just encouraging everybody to think outside of the inbox. By just checking your email every so often then closing your email program, it might surprise you how much time you have in the day.
