I have advocated many times that we take back our workdays and private lives by resisting the interruptions of email. Using a Blackberry is tantamount to making a statement that you’d rather be interrupted than do some quality work.
Roman Rytov alerted me to Dave Lorenzo’s story about how he ditched his Blackberry and suddenly found that he was getting more quality work done!
Some gems from Dave’s post:
My productivity was off the charts high yesterday. I completed a project that I have been trying to finish for a couple of weeks.
The day flew by as I was truly absorbed in work for the first time in a long time. It was great not to have that little window pop up with an e-mail every thirty seconds. I think I may be able to cut back to checking e-mail less frequently.
Who the hell did I think I was? The world did not stop because I didn’t reply to people in thirty seconds or less. I’m not so important that people need my insight in real time. Responding a couple of hours later is just fine.
In a follow-up post, Dave goes on to describe how he now needs to train people not to expect a reply immediately.
My opinion is that the most important messages warrant a response within the same business day, and the rest within 24 hours. If an issue is more urgent than this, then email is not the most suitable medium — use the phone instead.
Related articles:
Email programs have not changed much in the past decade, but the amount of email we get has grown by a tremendous amount, significantly impacting our email productivity. The average information worker gets far more mail than s/he can cope with, and an increasing number of people suffer from "email overload". In this blog, Itzy Sabo analyzes the causes of email overload, discusses strategies to cope with the constant bombardment, and provides practical tips for getting the most out of our email programs. 
3 responses so far ↓
adamo // July 24, 2006 at 4:04 pm |
Well he did that by ditching his Blackberry, I managed that by doing the following things:
- No sound for new mail
- Mobile phone set to silent
- Work phone set to a very low but noticeable level
I discovered that ring tone of my mobile and the ringing of my work phone irritated me a lot when I was coding. So, silencing the former (actually to just one beep) and lowering the level of the later, gave me my keyboard back plus some KLOCs to my employer.
Eleanor // October 27, 2006 at 8:11 pm |
Every ass loves to hear himself bray. Eleanor.
Hud // April 24, 2007 at 11:21 am |
i am forwarding this to everyone i know (one of the IMPORTANT emails that should be read) in the past i have tried some of these methods and i know they are the best tool for more productivity but checking your email is like an addiction – who emailed me, what’s going on etc. Perhaps i need a Emails Anononomis support group :)
what i do find is that i end up spending more time trying to figure the email out than actually fulfilling it. my rule of thumb – if it’s more than one para – i CALL the person (!!) and talk the issue or task over with them.
thanks for a great post!