Advocating emails (and Blackberry)

David Lorentzo fights his battle with an email disease and has taken the second step in building his new email lifestyle. This time (and please read the entire story - the links at the end of his blog) David tries to delete emails immediately that are not addressed directly to him. He admit, though, that it may sound drastic to us and that he's in the very beginning of the experiment so he may find it uncomfortable and change his mind in the future.

I think that the last recipe can't be accepted easily. It seems to me that David is struggling with the growing snowball of emails (like many of us) and the number of emails he ought to devote a dose of attention simply is unmanageable. But to delete emails not addressed directly to you sounds like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

We're CC-de on purpose and usually it's not spam. Sometimes you have to be in the loop, stay tuned, and keep track of the events. If you grow email culture in the organization (or at least in your team) then people start using the CC field, distribution lists, and emails in general cautiously. The same is true for Blackberry (which David got rid of some weeks ago). You don't have to answer every email from the BB and to answer any email immediately at all! The last point has been proved by David during his experiment.

I think that email is a very powerful tool and, as any powerful tool, it requires  safety measures. But when we try to get rid of emails (as a tool) instead of using it properly I feel we put the cart in front of the horse. A few short tips on how I tame the email monster.

• Use a few rules performing rough filtering. For instance, emails CC-ing me get to a special folder as opposite to directly addressed to me. Distribution lists is another clear candidate for auto-sorting to folders. Then different folders get different priority of my attention;
• Emails required future actions are marked "unopened" until they're answered or a corresponding task or event is created;
• BB is used only to trace the email flow and not to answer directly unless the answer is brief or criticality and urgency is high;
• BB is  used  only in a  out-of-desk mode - this is its purpose! I don't know why David likes so much no-blackberry-time while he's in a plane (taxiing, landing) - what so important in these few minutes if not to check "breaking news" from others?
• Emails are read in a the reverse chronological order. It saves time to you by not reacting to outdated emails and not dealing with the tail of the story;
• Use messengers for short-and-quick communications. GTalk is the best to my taste and is available on BB too:-)

Again, I admit the problem of uncontrolled emails exists. But don't believe that Stalin's principle - "no man, no problem" - may be applied to emails. We should develop and share better practices (and, apparently, better tools) to manage it more efficiently along with other communication means.

Technorati tags: email, blackberry, GTD, productivity, culture