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Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

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Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#71

Post by griffinheart »

cortesoft wrote: post #6

I never mark email as read, nor do I move it out of my inbox. I have something like 800k unread emails in my inbox. However, I don't need to 'declare email bankruptcy' nor do I need to clear out my inbox.. I just don't pay any attention to the read or unread status. My inbox IS my archive. My system is this: When I check my email, I make sure I mark the most recent email as read. Then, I look back until I find the ne…

I'm like this, without the extra added steps. I have 2500 unread emails in my inbox, I skim over what's new in the inbox and read what I want that's it, the important thing is search.

I've found this is applying to almost everything I do for a while now. Started with gmail, its google after all I can just search.

I don't "organise" my inbox, if I need to find an email I'll search for it.

I have over 70 tabs open in chrome, if I need to find a tab I search for it. Using vimium I press shift+t and just search for the tab, if it doesn't find the tab it opens a google search for it.

I don't ever organise my files/downloads folder, If I need to find a file I command+space and write open yellow-subm. Using Alfred

I don't bother with folder structure organisation, every project is a folder under ~/src folder, if I need to go to the server project I write on the terminal `z serv`, and it cd's into the folder. Using z[0].

I don't bother with which buffers are open in vim, if I need to see the file drink something controller file I press t and write drikcontrol. Using command-t

If I want to put the computer to sleep I press command+space and write sleep. Again Alfred

I think what changed for me is I don't really care about the structure/organisation I care about getting the thing I want. I either want to find something (search), or do something (command).

I guess the important thing is the organisation is implicit on the name/contents of the thing I'm looking for.

The only problem that rises from this is if a co-worker asks where a code file is I usually don't know, but then I solve that by t name-of-file and check the path.

[0] https://github.com/rupa/z

Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#72

Post by SyneRyder »

rpgmaker wrote: post #63
gammaflow wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would do this but sadly I was dumb enough to use it with OAuth in numerous places

Why is this a problem?

It means deleting your Facebook account will also prevent you logging into those other services. I had to delete a Spotify account and start over after I initially signed up via a Facebook login.

(I should note that the Spotify staff were amazingly helpful and actually migrated me over to an email-login account when asked.)

Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#73

Post by oever »

Puts wrote: post #58

The reason nothing has replaced email yet, even tough it's an old and clonky protocol is because it's an open standard and people don't make standards any more. Today you make services (most often based on HTTP because it's a protocol any 20yr old junior programmer can handle) that are locked in, harvesting has much data about it's users as possible desperately hoping that it could monetize on this data one day.

I wish this was a newsgroup.

Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#74

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

Sophistifunk wrote: post #45
stegosaurus wrote: post #15

I actually wish e-mail were used more. I want my relatives, my spouse, my friends to use e-mail. I'm not quite sure how to convince them, though. It generally feels like they'd rather use Facebook or WhatsApp or whatever's in fashion at the moment. Any tips? Do I just have to sign up to all of the different chat apps and write bots to forward them to me or something?

Delete your Facebook. There are a more benefits than being able to email; you'll stop pretending to be friends with those kids from high school, don't see your ex's new life, and you can get drunk with your friends without your aunt knowing.

I did that for three years and regret it. I realize now that I should have just shaped my use to fit my needs: unfriend or unfollow people I don't care to follow, write more messages rather than scrolling through the newsfeed, and join events and groups more deliberately.

Now I actually use it to keep in touch with people I care about, rather than just pretend that's what I'm doing.

I missed out on some things during my three years with Facebook off, and although I learned so much from having done it, I wouldn't do it again.

Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#75

Post by nowlnowl »

geofft wrote: post #32
marbletiles wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I make sure I mark the most recent email as read. Then, I look back until I find the next email marked as read. I don't have to do any of this or have a special system. I just read my email. If an email is unread, it's unread. If it's in the inbox, it hasn't been dealt with yet. That's where the "need" comes from: it's the simplest way of achieving exactly the same result you achieve with your system.

I use basically the system described above, because I have tons of emails that I never intend to read (e.g., from mailing lists). The system of leaving them all in my inbox is simpler than having to explicitly archive them all.

If I were you I would use a filter to auto-archive all those mailing-lists you don't intend to read.

Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#76

Post by oever »

mirimir wrote: post #35

tl;dr : "Turn Messages Into Tasks" Man, I miss Agenda :( It basically did that automatically.

I've been looking for a different interface for email that focuses on actions and not emails. Other types of communication, e.g. RSS, could feed actions into the same interface. Every incoming email is an intended action: a text that you intend to read and decide to either take any number of actions on.

At different times of the day, different filters apply. During work hours, only work mails and a few personal contacts get through the filter and on my 'read mail' task. I perform the 'read mail' task a few times during work.

Outside of work, only mails with private topics will get through. Phone and text can be used for urgent work issues. For mailing lists, each updated thread is one read task.

Every read task can lead to one or more immediate or intended actions. Intended actions have categories.

Different types of actions:

- current action: the action I'm taking right now

- action stack: a current action can lead to a small subactions

- intended action: action that is in the system and shows up as a possible current action. This includes sports and cooking.

- planned action: an action with a fixed start time, usually these are synchronous with actions of other people e.g. meetings or travel.

An important feature of this interface is to group and filter actions by context. When working on project X, only show actions of project X. This reduces the huge number of context switches the many people struggle with.

Every action that is taken is linked to the action that led to it. Sending email gives the option to create an intended action for a follow-up when there is no reply from the receiver within a set time.

While an action is being performed, your computer IO is monitored. These data packets, e.g. git commits, changed files, emails sent, visited web pages, sent web forms, can be included in an action report. This way, there is a simple report after each action.

All action reports form your archive. The archive are your past actions, they are out of your way once you've dealt with them.

Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#77

Post by mcpherrinm »

gammaflow wrote: post #55
Sophistifunk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delete your Facebook. There are a more benefits than being able to email; you'll stop pretending to be friends with those kids from high school, don't see your ex's new life, and you can get drunk with your friends without your aunt knowing.

I would do this but sadly I was dumb enough to use it with OAuth in numerous places

Maybe this isn't a great solution, and I haven't tried it, but you could defriend everyone, and set your privacy settings so nobody can see or find you. For most purposes, you'd cease to exist on Facebook.

Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#78

Post by stephengillie »

gjolund wrote: post #5
kirykl wrote: post #4

What I despise most the is the desk drop in, especially for things that could be easily emailed. Sometimes even interrupting me to alert me in person that you've sent me an email. However I've been told by a manager to use the desk drop in more, to get more visibility and make it look like I'm engaging with the team to outside observers

I recently had a manager say the same thing to me about Slack. The founders were apparently trolling the tech channels and my name didn't come up enough. Mostly because I was busy working and not incessantly spamming giphy nonsense. Needless to say I quit.

Some workplaces have the "fish-bowl" feeling, and Slack can really amplify that. Imagine having alerts come into a channel where your boss's boss is watching you acknowledge them, DM'ing him critiques of your work in realtime.

Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#79

Post by stephengillie »

hashmp wrote: post #69
kirykl wrote: post #4

What I despise most the is the desk drop in, especially for things that could be easily emailed. Sometimes even interrupting me to alert me in person that you've sent me an email. However I've been told by a manager to use the desk drop in more, to get more visibility and make it look like I'm engaging with the team to outside observers

This is interesting, as I sometimes do this. I don't like just writing an email requesting something and flinging it off to someone without talking to them in person. I put everything I need into an email. I'll then pop over just to say hey and explain. I guess I do this with people I don't usually communicate with. Surely face to face contact is a good thing?

This duplication of communication confuses me. At which employer is the work pace slow enough to have so much face time? And how do you handle this with your remote coworkers, or those on completely different shifts?

Re: Email Isn’t the Thing We’re Bad At

#80

Post by qznc »

Puts wrote: post #58

The reason nothing has replaced email yet, even tough it's an old and clonky protocol is because it's an open standard and people don't make standards any more. Today you make services (most often based on HTTP because it's a protocol any 20yr old junior programmer can handle) that are locked in, harvesting has much data about it's users as possible desperately hoping that it could monetize on this data one day.

I believe the biggest reason for HTTP is that firewalls let it through.
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