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Is Email = Efail?

codinghorror.com

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Re: Is Email = Efail?

#3

Post by sharkfish »

So IM is better? 3000 messages in my inbox that I can attend to when I'm ready vs. IM - where I'm dealing with everybody simultaneously and live? That's worse than the telephone, IMHO.

Anyway, if you get the same query more than once, it is time to put the answer into a wiki or blog.

Re: Is Email = Efail?

#4

Post by Retric »

If someone sends you a long email trash it or call them once. I find I can process around 300 emails an hour if I just trash most of the unimportant ones. The secret is the one line response. Yes, No, Sorry I don't have the time etc. The older an email the more willing I am to just dump it into the trash.

Re: Is Email = Efail?

#5

Post by Tichy »

What scares me is that I have given up on the spam problem months ago and now just rely on the Thunderbird spam filter. So email is no longer a reliable way to contact me, because of the danger of false positives. Meanwhile, the junk mail folder contains thousands of emails, so there is no chance for sifting through it by hand.

Re: Is Email = Efail?

#6

Post by ricardo »

While it's difficult to keep up with a steady stream of lengthy emails, I prefer that to phone calls. Especially when working with customers who tend to ask the same question multiple times. I'd rather send an email and attach the same file/text again and again than deal with the overhead of multiple phone calls.

Re: Is Email = Efail?

#7

Post by bmj »

sharkfish wrote: post #3

So IM is better? 3000 messages in my inbox that I can attend to when I'm ready vs. IM - where I'm dealing with everybody simultaneously and live? That's worse than the telephone, IMHO. Anyway, if you get the same query more than once, it is time to put the answer into a wiki or blog.

I agree. I'm a big fan of asynchronous communication.

I only use IM for work and communicating with my wife during the work day. Fortunately, we use Skype at the office, so I can minimize my exposure to friends. I've discovered that even when I set my status in, say, Google Chat, to "Leave me alone" people still contact me, so I just got in the habit of not signing in.

I also don't have a high volume of email--even with list memberships, I probably don't receive more than 50 emails a day.

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