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Why do people hate email so much? (Because they haven't mastered it yet, Grasshopper, but anyway...) The thing is, it's communication. Are we shocked that a big

Why do people hate email so much? (Because they haven't mastered it yet, Grasshopper, but anyway...) The thing is, it's communication. Are we shocked that a big chunk of our work burden is the burden of communication? "He spent 1/3 of his time at work answering emails!" Outrageous! vs. "He spent 1/3 of his time at work communicating with the other workers." Yeah sounds about right, if not a little low. The other thing nagging at me is that this feels like Cal Newport woke up one day, got annoyed at his inbox and wrote a whole book about it. I'm all for re-thinking and re-designing, but I'm becoming increasingly skeptical of people who hate email or whatever, and want to re-make the world in that image. It's like the people who get all pissy when it's raining out. Tony Soprano would say, ay it's fuckin' raining, but whaddyagonnadoo. Interruptions, yes, those are harmful. But that's why there's email. I guarantee an email is easier to delay than someone calling, instant-messaging or physically approaching you. It's got "mail" right there in the name; far as I'm concerned that means you have free license to delay for a day or multiple days, just like the postal service. Check it once or twice a day, during times when you're not trying to concentrate, and then close out of it. Anything useful, copy it to where it belongs (task list, calendar, etc.). If it needs action at some point, mark it "Pending." After that, archive that shit and forget it. If you get too much, tell people to stop sending it. Or just take so long replying that they stop. I dunno.

tj-teej 5y ago
I think Tony would say "whatever happened to Gary Cooper"
onetimename 5y ago
I’m creating an account just to reply to this, and for some context: I’m a big Cal Newport fan. He isn’t arguing against the use of email, but the non intentional default to emailing instead of work. Yes, your ideal scenario- communication between employees will get work done. But in Cal’s scenarios, that one person is having multiple conversations like that through email, and is waiting for the other person to reply. And instead of producing deliverables, they are having these slow conversations. You mention just get to the email later, but rarely does the application or notification go away after the info is gathered. So your plan of checking email 1-3 times a day is right inline with Cal’s thinking. Some of his solutions he hand waives away complexities with “we’ll rock and roll” but the idea is email won’t be a springboard for work. It sends pdf’s and reports and minutes great, but planning a project is better done elsewhere.
- rdiddly 5y ago
  Hmm maybe I agree with him more than I think I do then. And yeah I've enjoyed at least one of his books and "feel like" I've read another just because of how often it gets quoted to me, haha. Definitely there are at least two ways of screwing up, and they're both about using the wrong tool for the job. One is to use urgent methods for stuff that's not urgent (which bothers people). And the other, which it sounds like you're alluding to, is using a non-urgent method (email) for things that truly are urgent. Or that are, to use a metaphor, "bandwidth-intensive." You can usually get a heck of a lot more communication done faster in person than you can by email. Although much of it will be lost into the ether, too... unless someone's taking notes. Everybody just use the right tool for the job okay? Great, that's settled!
systemvoltage 5y ago
Anytime anyone wants to change something and they give you one of these reasons, run away! 1) We want to modernize it 2) X is so 1990's 3) It is old fashioned. That means that person is grounded in fashion/trends/what-others-think and not objectivity. Email didn't come with a date stamped on it - "Hey this technology must be used in 1990-2010 era". For the love of the god people, think from the bottom up. Stop following trends like headless zombies. Just the other day someone on HN was proposing a better UX/UI for cars without explaining in detail 1) what are the downsides of current steering wheel and 2 or 3 pedals 2) What are the upsides of their idea. Without significant justification for 1) and 2), you ain't changing anything. Stop ruining the world, please.
- slgeorge 5y ago
  I voted you back up because generally I agree that using weak value judgements (e.g. X is old fashioned) without saying WHY a particular thing needs to be improved is not very useful. In fairness, in the article he does say why all these communications tools are a problem in his opinion.
- sjg007 5y ago
  Email has been around since the 1960s and the best part of it was asynchronous world wide cheap communication. Today it is a platform that supports all kinds of various business workflows. You can run a business via email alone. It sucks but you can do it. What's interesting is that these workflows are all in conventions and human protocols and not encoded in email itself. Email can be seen as a big send and store packet which requires human decoding. Anyone has a public address which you can send to etc... Anyway, interesting way to think about it.
xkeysc0re 5y ago
>Tony Soprano would say, ay it's fuckin' raining, but whaddyagonnadoo. "You don't wanna work in the rain, go try out for the Yankees." ~ Season 1 Episode 5, "College"
atoav 5y ago
I love email. It is just text, it is truly asynchronous (as in: nobody expects you to answer within a minute) it is sortable, searchanle, you can create automatic filters, everybody has email. But the best thing is: you have to write everything into _one_ email. I don't have to follow someones fragmented train of thought and glue the shards together in order to make sense of them. No: they want something from me and so the burden of sorting their thoughts is on them. I also don't hate chats, or a phone call, however this is for different communications. If you do important stuff everybody should know via chat (or worse: recorded speech messages in a chat) you might be doing it wrong. I know someone whos boss would send multiple 15 min speech messages a day into a group chat to all employees. To find the information you needed to know you would have to listen through the whole thing, write it down for yourself etc. And this times 40 employees just because one person didn't bother.
cwp 5y ago
I think most people that think they hate email just hate Outlook. Some MS product manager decided that it would force you to top post, and then endlessly growing but completely indecipherable quote vomit below the message became the norm. Back in the day, email was great. A listserv targeted to a specific community of people that know their netiquette is the best way to collaborate.

tj-teej 5y ago

I think Tony would say "whatever happened to Gary Cooper"

onetimename 5y ago

I’m creating an account just to reply to this, and for some context: I’m a big Cal Newport fan. He isn’t arguing against the use of email, but the non intentional default to emailing instead of work. Yes, your ideal scenario- communication between employees will get work done. But in Cal’s scenarios, that one person is having multiple conversations like that through email, and is waiting for the other person to reply. And instead of producing deliverables, they are having these slow conversations. You mention just get to the email later, but rarely does the application or notification go away after the info is gathered. So your plan of checking email 1-3 times a day is right inline with Cal’s thinking. Some of his solutions he hand waives away complexities with “we’ll rock and roll” but the idea is email won’t be a springboard for work. It sends pdf’s and reports and minutes great, but planning a project is better done elsewhere.

rdiddly 5y ago
Hmm maybe I agree with him more than I think I do then. And yeah I've enjoyed at least one of his books and "feel like" I've read another just because of how often it gets quoted to me, haha. Definitely there are at least two ways of screwing up, and they're both about using the wrong tool for the job. One is to use urgent methods for stuff that's not urgent (which bothers people). And the other, which it sounds like you're alluding to, is using a non-urgent method (email) for things that truly are urgent. Or that are, to use a metaphor, "bandwidth-intensive." You can usually get a heck of a lot more communication done faster in person than you can by email. Although much of it will be lost into the ether, too... unless someone's taking notes. Everybody just use the right tool for the job okay? Great, that's settled!

systemvoltage 5y ago

Anytime anyone wants to change something and they give you one of these reasons, run away! 1) We want to modernize it 2) X is so 1990's 3) It is old fashioned. That means that person is grounded in fashion/trends/what-others-think and not objectivity. Email didn't come with a date stamped on it - "Hey this technology must be used in 1990-2010 era". For the love of the god people, think from the bottom up. Stop following trends like headless zombies. Just the other day someone on HN was proposing a better UX/UI for cars without explaining in detail 1) what are the downsides of current steering wheel and 2 or 3 pedals 2) What are the upsides of their idea. Without significant justification for 1) and 2), you ain't changing anything. Stop ruining the world, please.

slgeorge 5y ago
I voted you back up because generally I agree that using weak value judgements (e.g. X is old fashioned) without saying WHY a particular thing needs to be improved is not very useful. In fairness, in the article he does say why all these communications tools are a problem in his opinion.
sjg007 5y ago
Email has been around since the 1960s and the best part of it was asynchronous world wide cheap communication. Today it is a platform that supports all kinds of various business workflows. You can run a business via email alone. It sucks but you can do it. What's interesting is that these workflows are all in conventions and human protocols and not encoded in email itself. Email can be seen as a big send and store packet which requires human decoding. Anyone has a public address which you can send to etc... Anyway, interesting way to think about it.

xkeysc0re 5y ago

>Tony Soprano would say, ay it's fuckin' raining, but whaddyagonnadoo. "You don't wanna work in the rain, go try out for the Yankees." ~ Season 1 Episode 5, "College"

atoav 5y ago

I love email. It is just text, it is truly asynchronous (as in: nobody expects you to answer within a minute) it is sortable, searchanle, you can create automatic filters, everybody has email. But the best thing is: you have to write everything into _one_ email. I don't have to follow someones fragmented train of thought and glue the shards together in order to make sense of them. No: they want something from me and so the burden of sorting their thoughts is on them. I also don't hate chats, or a phone call, however this is for different communications. If you do important stuff everybody should know via chat (or worse: recorded speech messages in a chat) you might be doing it wrong. I know someone whos boss would send multiple 15 min speech messages a day into a group chat to all employees. To find the information you needed to know you would have to listen through the whole thing, write it down for yourself etc. And this times 40 employees just because one person didn't bother.

cwp 5y ago

I think most people that think they hate email just hate Outlook. Some MS product manager decided that it would force you to top post, and then endlessly growing but completely indecipherable quote vomit below the message became the norm. Back in the day, email was great. A listserv targeted to a specific community of people that know their netiquette is the best way to collaborate.