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The Tyranny of Email
Circuit Breaker writes "Are you or your co-workers using email instead of phone, face to face conversations, or instant messaging? Read this article, and hand out copies to your mates."
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...in the last 5 years has been like this: people emailed their colleague in the next cubicle rather than just leaning over to talk to them. What's new?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I liked it so much, I emailed a link to my whole group!
(whoops...)
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I'm sure if I had someone trying to have a conversation with me about how I could increase my penis size to 15 inches or that I'm missing out on hot steamy sex with barely legal teens, they would be in for a world of hurt.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Well, I think I'll just forward them the link, because if I talk to them in real life then they'd realize I wasn't 6'2" with a boy builder's body.
--sig fault--
The article seems already slashdotted. Can someone e-mail me a copy, please?
Signatures are for stupids.
I find that using email makes me more efficient by allowing me to have multiple conversations at once, as well as see the history of the conversation in all of the replies.
-CowboyNick
the tyranny of Instant Messaging?
At least for me it is.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
In my office, everyone relies on the phone. Imagine sitting in the cube between two people having a phone discussion, and hearing it in stereo.
The two objections to email listed in the article are:
1. It breaks your concentration.
2. It misleads you into inefficient problem solving.
I'll go with the second one, as you don't get any hands on experience, or any ad hoc give and take communication about the problems you are addressing. Meetings, phone calls, and face to face are really required for a lot of complex problems. (Many cut and dry tech questions can still be answered efficiently in email, however).
The first point-- that it "breaks your concentration-- to me is a matter of personal reaction to email. Are you compulsively checking it? Do you have audio and visual cues blasting you when something hits your inbox?
I check my email at work frequently, but between phone calls and meetings and moments of work where I need to concentrate. And I certainly don't have the mailbox yelling at me or popping up reminders. My clients, coworkers, et al all get their answers in a timely fashion, just not instantaneously at all times.
IM, on the other hand, is a different story. We're now using Lotus SameTime, and I find myself using the "I am Away" option quite frequently. Maybe the thrust of the article should have been IM and its annoyances?
The Tyranny of Email
Saturday, 03/08/03 11:41 AM
In a hurry? Then please see the rules for avoiding email tyranny and the guidelines for being productive.
Email is one of the greatest things the computer revolution has done for personal productivity. Used improperly, it can also hurt your productivity. This article discusses ways to use email effectively. Then it goes beyond that and talks about how to be productive, period.
When Email Goes Bad
I'm not going to list all the reasons email is good. You know them already, I assume you are an avid email user. (Anyone reading this is online, and just about anyone who goes online uses email.) I'm also not going to tell you email is evil, because it isn't. The negative productivity impact of email comes from the way you use it, not the medium itself.
There are two ways email impairs your productivity:
1. It breaks your concentration.
2. It misleads you into inefficient problem solving.
Let's take the concentration impact first. I'm a software engineer, and programming requires extended periods of concentration. Actually this isn't unique to programming, a lot of fields require that you concentrate. (Probably just about everything worth doing requires some concentration!)
{
I maintain that programming cannot be done in less than three-hour windows. It takes three hours to spin up to speed, gather your concentration, shift into "right brain mode", and really focus on a problem. Effective programmers organize their day to have at least one three-hour window, and hopefully two or three. (This is why good programmers often work late at night. They don't get interrupted as much...)
}
One of the key attributes of email is that it queues messages. Unlike face-to-face conversation and 'phone calls, people can communicate via email without both paying attention at the same time. You pick the moments at which you pay attention to email. But many people leave their email client running continuously. This is the biggest baddest reason why email hurts your productivity. If you leave your email client running, it means anyone anytime can interrupt what you're doing. Essentially they pick the moments at which you pay attention. (Even some random spammer who is sending you a crappy ad for a get-rich scheme.) This is bad.
There are three stages to this badness. Stage one is configuring your email client to present alerts when you receive an email. Don't do this. Stage two is configuring your email client to make noise when you receive an email. Don't do this. Stage three is running your email client all the time. Don't do this, either. To be effective, you must pick the moments at which you're going to receive email. I know this goes against common wisdom. Just about everyone I know runs their client all the time, has it configured to make noise, and may even have it present alerts when an email is received. Don't do it.
Spam is the best kind of email to get, because you look at it quickly, see that it's spam, and delete it. Then you get back to work. Personal email is the second best kind of email to get, because you either respond quickly ("Hi Jane, great hearing from you. See you at the club tonight.") or set it aside for later. Task-oriented work email is the worst kind of email to get. It often requires thought, and because it is work there is some immediacy to it. But as soon as you take the time to respond, you've interrupted yourself. You've shifted back to "left brain mode", and you've lost the thread of your concentration.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't respond to emails promptly. Check email whenever you're interrupted anyway - before you start work, after a meeting, after lunch, before you go home, etc. Set aside time to do this. Just don't let others dictate the timing.
Has this ever happened to you?
[ In the hallway at work... ]
O: "Hi R, how's it going?"
R: "Great, how are you?"
O: "Good. Hey, did you see my email about the framitz?"
R: "No, I haven't checked my email yet today, sorry."
O: "WHAT!"
It has happened to me. Sometimes I can't believe it - I sent the email at 9:30, and here it is 11:30, and they haven't checked their email? What are they doing? They're being efficient, that's what. They're picking their moment to be interrupted, and that's a good thing. We'll revisit this theme again below in the Three Hour Rule. For now, here's the takeaway:
* Turn your email client off. You should pick the moment at which you'll be interrupted.
Okay, now let's look at the second productivity-sapping attribute of email, that it misleads you into inefficient problem solving. Email is a communication medium. You send messages to others, you receive messages from others. Some of these messages are mere data transmission - FYIs so you know what's going on. Some are "noise" - 'thank you's, 'I got it's, jokes, etc. And some - many - are problem solving. You hear about a problem, and you respond with a possible solution, or a possible approach, or more questions. Nothing wrong so far - email is a good medium for problem solving. And it is so easy - you get an email, you think (sometimes), and you respond. Poof, you're done.
Except when you're not. Because there are some kinds of problems which don't get solved in email, ever. And as soon as you have that kind of problem, you have to stop, immediately, before you make the problem worse.
First, never, ever, criticize someone in email. For reasons which I have never fully grasped, any negative emotion is always amplified by communication through email. Sometimes you intend to be critical - someone has done something dumb, or said something silly, or emailed something ridiculous. Resist the urge to reply. Sometimes you don't mean to be critical - you're just making an observation, or engaging in technical debate, or adding facts to a discussion. But as soon as you sense that the recipient has taken your email as criticism, you must immediately switch media - a face-to-face meeting is best, but a 'phone call is also okay.
Second, don't get into prolonged technical debates in email. I've seen threads lasting weeks with a whole series of kibitzers, with everyone restating their points of view and nothing getting settled. Often email has the effect of polarizing the debate, and the combatants end up further apart in their views then when the debate began. As soon as you sense this happening, you must immediately switch media. A meeting with the core people involved in best, but a conference call is also okay.
Both of these kinds of problems which don't get solved in email are exacerbated by copying others. The bigger the audience, the worse things get. As bad as it is to be critical in email, it is far worse if ten colleagues are copied. Often the presence of an email audience is what makes for the polarization of technical debates - if the core people were the only ones involved, they would be less virulent and more willing to acknowledge other points of view and seek compromise. Okay, so here's the takeaway:
* Never criticize anyone in email, and avoid technical debates. Use face-to-face meetings or 'phone calls instead.
Before I go on to talking about productivity in general, let me share some other thoughts about email. First, be judicious in who you send email to, and who you copy on emails. Every email recipient is going to lose a little time reading each email you send. Simple emails which say "thanks" or "got it" or "see you at the meeting" are polite and part of normal human communication. But there is a limit, no need to reply "you're welcome", or "glad you got it", or "great, I'll see you, too". In my career I've run large teams, and sometimes people in those teams copied me on virtually every email they sent. Maybe they wanted me to know what was going on, or maybe they were letting me know what a great job they were doing. Either way, they were taking my time with stuff I didn't need to spend time on. I have a high capacity for skimming email, but there is always the feeling that they didn't get it; like "why did they copy me on this?" There should be a purpose to every addressee on each email. It is okay to drop recipients from a reply - in fact, it is good; less people are involved, and [to reiterate the point] the bigger the audience, the more any implied criticism or debate will be exacerbated.
{
I have to digress for a pet peeve. I send an email to S, and S replies, copying eight other people. I reply back to S alone. S replies, again copying eight other people. This is bad. If I'm smart I will abandon email and continue the conversation with S face-to-face or over the 'phone. If I'm not smart I'll flame S so badly his hair catches fire, copying everyone, and regret it later.
}
Second, email is a very relaxed medium, but observing some formality is important. Use an email client which spell checks. Use normal capitalization. Use correct grammar - complete sentences make email easier to read just like everything else. Don't use weird background colors and strange fonts. Don't append pictures of your dog. You get the picture... I've received emails from senior people which bordered on illiterate, with incorrect capitalization, grammar, incomplete sentences, etc. The impression is not positive.
Third, email can be immediate, but don't hesitate to review and revise important emails. In many companies email has all but replaced paper memos. In many business situations email has replaced letters. When writing an email which has a wide distribution, or which affects a negotiation, or possible deal, or potential sale, take the time to write a draft, and reread it later. You can almost always improve the wording, make a point more concisely, or other otherwise improve the communication.
Finally, remember that email is a public and permanent record. Email is plain text and goes out over public networks, and is often stored on servers for a long time and may be backed up for a longer time. It might feel "throwaway" at the time, but it will not be thrown away, as senior executives at Microsoft, Enron, Worldcom, and others have discovered. If you have something to say which won't bear the public light of day, it shouldn't be said in email. And if you are sending something confidential or sensitive, consider sending it as an encrypted and/or password-protected attachment.
Okay, enough about email. Here's the six rules for avoiding email tyranny:
1. Turn your email client off. Pick the moment at which you'll be interrupted.
2. Never criticize anyone in email, and avoid technical debates. Use face-to-face meetings or 'phone calls instead.
3. Be judicious in who you send email to, and who you copy on emails.
4. Observing some formality is important.
5. Don't hesitate to review and revise important emails.
6. Remember that email is a public and permanent record.
Got it? Cool. Thinking about email productivity led me to make some comments about productivity in general...
The Three Hour Rule
Programming is a right-brain activity. It is very conceptual and spatial and [gasp!] artistic. Effective programming requires that you transition from your body's normal "left brain" mode into a "right brain" zone. As I mentioned above, programming cannot be done in less than three-hour windows. Really. And in talking to friends in other fields, I'm convinced this applies to many other lines of work.
When you're in a three-hour zone, you've spun up to speed, gathered your concentration, shifted into "right brain mode", and are focusing on a problem. You're being productive. There are four things which can interrupt you, and you have to watch out for all of them:
1. Receiving email or 'phone calls.
2. Personal contact with colleagues.
3. Meetings.
4. Warp-offs.
Let's talk about each of these... First, emails or 'phone calls. Email we've talked about, this one is easy - just turn your email client off. Done. Most people receive far less 'phone calls than emails, so calls aren't nearly as much of a problem. The solution is the same - put your phone in "do not disturb" mode. Nowadays most everyone has a cell 'phone, leave that on, and if there is a genuine emergency your significant other or doctor or whomever will reach you there. Most calls to your desk are colleagues or customers; these are important, but as with email, you should pick the time to take them.
Second, there is personal contact with colleagues. Most companies these days can't afford for everyone to have a private office, so it is pretty easy to get interrupted. (If you have an office, close the door!) Distractions include ambient noise, questions ("Hey, do you know how to invoke a framitz?"), and other interruptions ("Hey, you want to play foosball?"). These are really important (especially foosball), but they are interruptions, and they will mess up your three-hour window. Basically you want to isolate yourself from your colleagues, just like with email and 'phone calls. To deal with ambient noise, get yourself some really good headphones and play music. Cordless, if you want. For $100 you will have the best-sounding music you can imagine, and a sure-fire way to eliminate background noise.
{
The "office vs. cubicle" debate rages and has not been settled. Some companies give every engineer their own office, and claim the productivity improvement is worth the cost. Others feel the atmosphere is better in a cubicle farm, and the interaction between engineers leads to better problem solving. Without taking a stand in this debate, the fact is that most engineers work in cubicles, and have little control over this. So it is what it is - you have to make the best of it.
In 2000 I joined PayPal, a dot-com with an egalitarian work environment where everyone had a cubicle, even the CEO. After many years of enjoying a private office, I was back in a cube. I quickly found two things to be essential, first, I positioned my desk and computer so I was not distracted by traffic (away from the cube opening), and second, I bought a great pair of cordless headphones. With these adaptations I was able to work just as productively as I had in an office. (Of course I used conference rooms for meetings.)
}
Do Not DisturbDealing with questions and interruptions from colleagues is more difficult. The give-and-take between engineers in a team is important; often one person will have the answer to another's dilemma. There is also the social aspect, it is enjoyable to interact with your colleagues. However, you need to have those three-hour windows. I recommend a simple sign you can hang on your cube: "I'm in a zone", "Do not disturb", etc. (This is a chance to be creative...) Essentially you want your colleagues to know you're zoning. If they have a technical question which can wait, they can put it in email, or wait until you emerge. If they need immediate attention ("hey, you want to play foosball?") at least they know you were in a zone, and that they're interrupting you.
Third, meetings... Ah yes. An entire book can be written about meetings, and many have. Let me make a few comments about meetings and then leave it. Meetings interrupt everyone who attends, obviously, so they are "expensive". They are also often the best way to communicate team status and to problem-solve. So there is tremendous leverage in having good meetings instead of bad ones. Each meeting should have a well-defined purpose, and the organizer should keep the meeting on track. It is good to have meetings "first thing", bordering on lunch, or at the end of the day; this way people's three-hour windows are less affected. Enough about meetings... they are what they are.
Finally, warp-offs. So, what's a "warp-off"? Well, unlike the other three kinds of interruptions, in which other people interrupt you, a "warp-off" is when you interrupt yourself. Generally this happens because you're stuck - you don't know what to do next - so you switch tasks and do something you know how to do. My favorite warp-off is surfing the Internet. Sometimes when I'm working on a tough problem, I have to force myself not to do it. Other possible warps include: reading email (!), working on "fun" stuff instead of "hard" stuff, bugging your colleagues ("foosball, anyone?"), and of course posting to your 'blog
{
In re: working on "fun" stuff instead of "hard" stuff, it is interesting to think about what makes some tasks fun and others hard. I think happiness comes from liking yourself, and fun things are things which make you like yourself. Tasks which are fun are therefore tasks which you know how to do, and which demonstrate your proficiency. Tasks which are hard are tasks which you don't know how to do, or which reveal a lack of expertise. There is often feedback involved - fun tasks will gain you recognition from customers or coworkers, but hard tasks may not.
When you get stuck and find yourself doing something "fun" instead of something "hard", ask yourself what makes the hard thing hard? In a perfect world each person would always be assigned tasks which they're good at, and which gain them recognition, so that everything they do is fun. The world isn't perfect, but that's the goal.
}
Okay, that's a lot of words, let's see if we can summarize. There is essentially one big rule and four guidelines:
*
Big Rule: It takes three hours to get anything done.
*
Guidelines:
1. Turn off your email client, put your 'phone in "do not disturb".
2. Isolate yourself. Get good headphones. Warn colleagues when you're "in the zone", to minimize their interrupts.
3. Minimize meetings and schedule them to avoid three-hour windows.
4. Become self-aware about warping off and try to un-stuck yourself.
That's it - thanks for your attention. If you have comments about any of this, I'd love to hear them; please shoot me an email. Don't worry, it won't interrupt me
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
At first, I was a bit sceptical about the contents of this article. I like e-mail and prefer it over phone conversations, especially because of its asynchronous nature but after having read the article, I must say that he is spot on.
Turning off my e-mail client and taking advantage of the asynchronous nature of e-mail even more would probably boost my productivity a lot. Not being a programmer, I still recognize that in order to get something done one must really sit down uninterrupted to get _real_ work done. And having pointless e-mails popping up every once in a while _is_ needless interruptions.
Not exactly rocket science but once in a while one should make sure that technology is working for oneself and not (too much) the other way around.
--
When Email Goes Bad
I'm not going to list all the reasons email is good. You know them already, I assume you are an avid email user. (Anyone reading this is online, and just about anyone who goes online uses email.) I'm also not going to tell you email is evil, because it isn't.The negativeproductivity impact of email comes from the way you use it, not the medium itself.
There are two ways email impairs your productivity:
Let's take the concentration impact first. I'm a software engineer, and programming requires extended periods of concentration. Actually this isn't unique to programming, a lot of fields require that you concentrate. (Probably just about everything worth doing requires some concentration!)
One of the key attributes of email is that it queues messages. Unlike face-to-faceconversation and 'phone calls, people can communicate via email without both paying attention at the same time. You pick the moments at which you pay attention to email. But many people leave their email client running continuously. This is the biggest baddest reason why email hurts your productivity. If you leave your email client running, it means anyone anytime can interrupt what you're doing. Essentially they pick the moments at which you pay attention. (Even somerandom spammer who is sending you a crappy ad for a get-rich scheme.) This is bad.
There are three stages to this badness. Stage one is configuring your email client to present alerts when you receive an email. Don't do this. Stage two is configuring your email client to make noise when you receive an email. Don't do this. Stage three is running your email client all the time. Don't do this, either. To be effective, you must pick the moments at which you're going to receive email. I know this goes against common wisdom. Just about everyone I know runs their client all the time, has it configured to make noise, and may even have it present alerts when an email is received. Don't do it.
Spam is the best kind of email to get, because you look at it quickly, see that it's spam, and delete it. Then you get back to work. Personal email is the second best kind of email to get, because you either respond quickly("Hi Jane, great hearing from you. See you at the club tonight.") or set it aside for later. Task-oriented work email is the worst kind of email to get. It often requires thought, and because it is work there is some immediacy to it. But as soon as you take the time to respond, you've interrupted yourself. You've shifted back to "left brain mode", and you've lost the thread of your concentration.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't respond to emails promptly. Check email whenever you're interrupted anyway - before you start work, after a meeting, after lunch, before you go home, etc. Set aside time to do this. Just don't let others dictate the timing.
Has this ever happened to you?
It has happened to me. Sometimes I can't believe it - I sent the email at 9:30, and here it is 11:30, and they haven't checked their email? What are they doing? They're being efficient, that's what. They're picking their moment to be interrupted, and that's a good thing. We'll revisit this theme again below in the Three Hour Rule. For now, here's the takeaway:
Okay, now let's look at the second productivity-sapping attribute of email, that it misleads you into inefficient problem solving. Email is a communication medium. You send messages to others, you receive messages from others. Some of these messages are mere data transmission - FYIs so you know what's going on. Some are "noise" - 'thank you's, 'I got it's, jokes, etc. And some - many - are problem solving. You hear about a problem, and you respond with a possible solution, or a possible approach, or more questions. Nothing wrong so far - email is a good medium for problem solving. And it is so easy - you get an email, you think (sometimes), and you respond. Poof, you're done.
Except when you're not. Because there are some kinds of problems which don't get solved in email, ever. And as soon as you have that kind of problem, you have to stop, immediately, before you make the problem worse.
First, never, ever, criticize someone in email. For reasons which I have never fully grasped, any negative emotion is always amplified by communication through email. Sometimes you intend to be critical - someone has done something dumb, or said something silly, or emailed something ridiculous. Resist the urge to reply. Sometimes you don't mean to be critical - you're just making an observation, or engaging in technical debate, or adding facts to a discussion. But as soon as you sense that the recipient has taken your email as criticism, you must immediately switch media - a face-to-face meeting is best, but a 'phone call is also okay.
Second, don't get into prolonged technical debates in email. I've seen threads lasting weeks with a whole series of kibitzers, with everyone restating their points of view and nothing getting settled. Often email has the effect of polarizing the debate, and the combatants end up further apart in their views then when the debate began. As soon as you sense this happening, you must immediately switch media. A meeting with the core people involved in best, but a conference call is also okay.
Both of these kinds of problems which don't get solved in email are exacerbated by copying others. The bigger the audience, the worse things get. As bad as it is to be critical in email, it is far worse if ten colleagues are copied. Often the presence of an email audience is what makes for the polarization of technical debates - if the core people were the only onesinvolved, they would be less virulent and more willing to acknowledge other points of view and seek compromise. Okay, so here's the takeaway:
Before I go on to talking about productivity in general, let me share someother thoughts about email. First, be judicious in who you send email to, and who you copy on emails. Every email recipient is going to lose a little time reading each email you send. Simple emails which say "thanks" or "got it" or "see you at the meeting" are polite and part of normal human communication. But there is a limit, no need to reply "you're welcome", or "glad you got it", or "great, I'll see you, too". In my career I've run large teams, and sometimes people in those teams copied me on virtually every email they sent. Maybe they wanted me to know what was going on, or maybe they were letting me know what a great job they were doing. Either way, they were taking my time with stuff I didn't need to spend time on. I have a high capacity for skimming email, but there is always the feeling that they didn't get it; like "why did they copy me on this?" There should be a purpose to every addressee on each email. It is okay to drop recipients from a reply - in fact, it is good; less people are involved, and [to reiterate the point] the bigger the audience, the more any implied criticism or debate will be exacerbated.
Second, email is a very relaxed medium, but observing some formality is important. Use an email client which spell checks. Use normal capitalization. Use correct grammar - complete sentences make email easier to read just like everything else. Don't use weird background colors and strange fonts. Don't append pictures of your dog. You get the picture... I've received emails from senior people which bordered on illiterate, with incorrect capitalization, grammar, incomplete sentences, etc. The impression is not positive.
Third, email can be immediate, but don't hesitate to review and revise important emails. In many companies email has all but replaced paper memos. In many business situations email has replaced letters. When writing an email which has a wide distribution, or which affects a negotiation, or possible deal, or potential sale, take the time to write a draft, and reread it later. You can almost always improve the wording, make a point more concisely, or other otherwise improve the communication.
Finally, remember that email is a public and permanent record. Email is plain text and goes out over public networks, and is often stored on servers for a long time and may be backed up for a longer time. It might feel "throwaway" at the time, but it will not be thrown away, as senior executives at Microsoft, Enron, Worldcom, and others have discovered. If you have something to say which won't bear the public light of day, it shouldn't be said in email. And if you are sending something confidential or sensitive, consider sending it as an encrypted and/or password-protected attachment.
Okay, enough about email. Here's the six rules for avoiding email tyranny :
Got it? Cool. Thinking about email productivity led me to make some comments about productivity in general...
Programming is a right-brain activity. It is very conceptual and spatial and [gasp!] artistic. Effective programming requires that you transition from your body's normal "left brain" mode into a "right brain" zone. As I mentioned above, programming cannot be done in less than three-hour windows. Really. And in talking to friends in other fields, I'm convinced this applies to many other lines of work.
When you're in a three-hour zone, you've spun up to speed, gathered your concentration, shifted into "right brain mode", and are focusing on a problem. You're being productive. There are four things which can interrupt you, and you have to watch out for all of them:
Let's talk about each of these... First, emails or 'phone calls. Email we've talked about, this one is easy - just turn your email client off. Done. Mostpeople receive far less 'phone calls than emails, so calls aren't nearly as much of a problem. The solution is the same - put your phone in "do not disturb" mode. Nowadays most everyone has a cell 'phone, leave that on, and if there is a genuine emergency your significant other or doctor or whomever will reach you there. Most calls to your desk are colleagues or customers; these are important, but as with email, you should pick the time to take them.
Second, there is personal contact with colleagues. Most companies these days can't afford for everyone to have a private office, so it is pretty easy to get interrupted. (If you have an office, close the door!) Distractions include ambient noise, questions ("Hey, do you know how to invoke a framitz?"), and other interruptions ("Hey, you want to play foosball?"). These are really important (especially foosball), but they are interruptions, and they will mess up your three-hour window. Basically you want to isolate yourself from your colleagues, just like with email and 'phone calls. To deal with ambient noise, get yourself some really good headphones and play music. Cordless, if you want. For $100 you will have the best-sounding music you can imagine, and a sure-fire way to eliminate background noise.
Dealing with questions and interruptions from colleagues is more difficult. The give-and-take between engineers in a team is important; often one person will have the answer to another's dilemma. There is also the social aspect, it is enjoyable to interact with your colleagues. However, you need to have those three-hour windows. I recommend a simple sign you can hang on your cube: "I'm in a zone", "Do not disturb", etc. (This is a chance to be creative...) Essentially you want your colleagues to know you're zoning. If they have a technical question which can wait, they can put it in email, or wait until you emerge. If they need immediate attention ("hey, you want to play foosball?") at least they know you were in a zone, and that they're interrupting you.
Third, meetings... Ah yes. An entire book can be written about meetings, and many have. Let me make a few comments about meetings and then leave it. Meetings interrupt everyone who attends, obviously, so they
(I will post the rest when I can..)
How to be Really antisocial, without guilt.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
This is one of the best articles that I have ever read about the trust relationship of and the double edged sword that is the current state of email. Dertouzos (God bless his soul) did a great job of sounding the alarm and offering practical advice. Well worth the read.
PHB: Hey Bob, where's that report?
Bob: Didn't Alice send it to you? I emailed to let her know that she needed to do that...
PHB: Hmm... Anybody seen Alice?
That happens all too often, in which case Alice is completely justified to take a fresh pot of coffee and pour it down Bob's pants.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
If I actually *wanted* to be more productive at work, I'd follow his advice. Of course I'd probably stay away from reading slashdot too...
If it's not in an email it never happened. Even when I have a conversation, I feel obliged to follow up with an email summarising the points to make sure we're all on the same page (excuse the management speak).
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
I am required to answer people as soon as the email comes in. It is expected, that I stop programming and answer my email ASAP, in case the problem being reported is an emergency.
And, being salaried, i don't get paid to work late nights and such (which doesn't stop me, but doesn't motivate me either).
Also, head phones aren't allowed in my office, because if a user comes in with a question it can make them feel ignored.
So. great advise. Wish i could use. it.
All changes to software I am developing are sent to me via email. Providing they are concise enough, it means I've always got something in writing to prove what was originally requested.
When people give you verbal instructions, I find that when they forget to ask you to do something, they often try to turn it around and make out that they *did* tell you.
People should use email because it's an efficient tool but I guess I use it mainly to cover my own back.
But the worst challenge is administration - This is an actual memo from our company president
... "yes I understandâ¦â but their expression shows confusion, and the supervisor knows the training is not complete.
Memo
To: CEO's
From: Jim
Date: 9/25/2002
Re: A Memo about Memo's
At the risk of sounding like a Delbert cartoon:
Yes, this is a Memo about the use of Memo's.
There have been several instances lately of inadequate communication, where the use of a Memo may have improved the understanding, or even prevented a problem.
First, I want to emphasize that the best form of communication is face-to-face; the second best is via telephone. Both of those methods allow the free flow exchange of ideas, with immediate feedback. The face-to-face advantage is the "body language" that most people can't hide, even if they tried. An example is a supervisor instructing a subordinate, who says:
Email is becoming another popular form of communication; it has its advantages, and its shortfalls. An email documents, as succinctly as the author can write it, just what is intended, no more, no less, and complete with a date and time. But a series of emails is not as efficient as a conversation.
Now to the heart of my message: many times, a conversation should be followed up by a Memo. It serves to record whatever was agreed upon, and can be copied to all appropriate individuals, without losing anything ''in translation". Memo's can be sent via email, fax, or courier. They may generate related Memo's in response, which can serve to document progress.
When using emails for this purpose, it is often best to string them together, so that all related emails or attached Memo's, can be referenced. If you are worried that an email may get automatically deleted or archived before the issue is resolved, it is wise to save it to a folder, or even print it if necessary.
It is generally advisable to specify responsibilities and expectations of respective individuals in your Memo's, including deadlines. Sometimes, you may wish to copy the Memo to a supervisor and/or senior management, so they can be apprised of the issue at hand.
Let's review:
1) While they don't replace conversations, Memo's are used to summarize understandings
2) Send to those directly involved, copy to others when appropriate, and list the author (you)
3) Date and title the Memo
4) Summarize understandings or instructions, complete with assignments and deadlines
5) Suggest additional meetings or conversations if more clarification is needed Note: 2-3 above are prompted for when using email or the Memo format in Word. We can help explain how we can use Outlook to organize Tasks and schedule meetings.
Example: please provide a copy of THIS Memo to each of your supervisors, and ask them to adopt this form of communication, this week. Thank you.
This is the most annoying aspect of email in the workplace. CC'ing somebody's f***** boss as if the recipient is going to think "Ah, he's CC'd my boss, i'd better get a move on with this."
All it does is PISS THEIR BOSS OFF.
And that's only the start of the problem. I have just been involved in a project where a minor issue that could have been resolved between two developers was blown up out of all proportion and resulted in a "crisis meeting" - all because of a reckless CC.
> If you leave your email client running, it means anyone anytime can
> interrupt what you're doing. Essentially they pick the moments at
> which you pay attention.
As opposed to a face-to-face conversation, where you blankly stare through someone or choose to ignore them? Or a phone call is supposed to be better in some way. "Ah, yes! You can ignore a phone call!" Yes, and you can ignore your email for periods as it stacks in.
I think having emails stream in on a regular basis is only a problem if you're obsessive compulsive about reading each and every one as they happen. Otherwise, it really isn't a problem anywhere near the author suggests. We can leave our email client running AND pick the moments we receive our mail.
I think one of the main reasons I like email is for a reason you give... it is a public and pemanent record. Although not necessarily true, I have to say, I like emails so that I can document things and refer back to them later when I need to. Super handy.
I'm sure I'd find more to disagree with in the article if it ever finishes loading.
For my money, the best way to deal with coworkers, particularly in reference to a technical problem, is email. You can take your time and frame your thoughts, organize them, edit them... Include source code and links to citations... It's really much better than face-to-face conversation. It even gives you an audit trail, in case someone "forgets" that he promised you a deliverable ("Oh? You never said you would write that component? Hmm... let me see" -- fishing in list of printouts -- "Huh. Isn't this your email describing what you were going to do for me?"). Face to face contact is a dodge, a way for people to stay off the record. Fuck 'em; always get it on "paper".
Besides, I'm not exactly a friendly person. Other people are fine in concept, provided I am permitted to observe them from a distance, but I don't like having too much face-to-face contact with them. Email lets me maintain some degree of solitude at work, which preserves my overall level of happiness.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Far back in the mists of time, well about 1990 anyway, there was a talker called Cheeseplant's House. This got really popular for a while, and at my university people would compulsively log on to it to talk. Eventually a user 'shouted' "Alright - this is silly. How many people here are just sitting in the Lab at Lancaster?".
The number of shame-faced heads that suddenly looked up and started glancing about was truly comical to see. And yes, I was one of 'em.
Cheers,
Ian
Where I work, the guy in the office next to me (about 10 feet away) would be the 'primary support' contact. Every once in awhile he'd get a bug report or something that would need to go to me. He'd email it to me. I dont check my email every 30 seconds, so it would basically go unnoticed for hours, maybe even a day or so. If he'd even speak in a normal voice and say "hey, check your email", then I'd know.
He's been since shit-canned, but it was still endlessly annoying to find out about a problem later than it was reported.
However, with our clients, email is the only way I want to handle everything. It provides a written audit trail of everything that happens, and it's come in handy many times.
One client in particular is becoming infamous around here for talking to techies like me on the phone, saying "oh there's nothing wrong, everything is going fine, just a couple really minor issues", and as soon as the phone is hung up, she's talking to the tech director pulling a chicken little act and telling him that the sky is falling and us lazy computer nerds arent saving the day. Luckily he's not enough of a pointy-haired boss to realize she's full of shit.
So, when she calls, I say "put every issue you have in an email". She has no room to lie and tell the boss she reported problem X or Y.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Ah a first oportunity to try out the Distributed Mirror Project
Here is a mirror list
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
And when you're working in IT, where your manager is probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown half the day, email is a lifesaver. I know that my boss preferred getting emails to having people walk into his office for everything. Sure, urgent matters are a different issue. But at least he could reply to important emails quickly and the rest of the email after the working day was done and not be interrupted in the middle of whatever he was doing earlier.
But, there's also laziness. I can't think of how many times my college roommates and I used to IM each other when we were all within shouting distance of each other.
I received typically 400 e-mails PER DAY. Avoid face contact? I actually have to go out of my way to get F2F contact! And yet at home we have more than one computer per household memeber, and I still tell my wife to e-mail me -- from the other side of the room!!! E-mail is a medium all to itself. As far as for solving problems, it depends. Complex problems, I'll have to agree, do better in meeting rooms and around coolers -- where there is a high person-to-person exchange. Low bandwidth p2p exchanges are better suited for e-mail. E-mail does give you the big advantage of automatically having a written record of the conversation. That could also be a problem, too, since such records can be subpeonaed! I wish everyone would use encryption with their e-mails. That way, you can simply "forget" the pw if someone wants to dig in...
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
I find the article itself to be mostly annoying. Anyone who allows their work to be degraded as a result of email has a performance problem, and blaming email, meetings, phone conversations, etc, for that performance problem is just avoiding the real problem.
Having said that, I'm going to vent about a wildly annoying email situation that I run into frequently.
I write a lot of proposals and plan deployment projects. I usually have technical questions regarding some specific aspects of deployments that I work on. I've found that I often have many questions, most of which are fairly verbose, and that won't be answered with one-word answers.
Normally, I bundle all these questions up in an email, put a summary at the beginning and a nice synopsis at the end, and send it off. About 50% of the time I get a good response back with verbose answers (usually these things are going to pre-sales technical support at software and hardware manufacturers), but about the other 50% of the time I get:
This is too technical to discuss in email, please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.
PLEASE CALL ME?!? WTF? This is too technical? Perhaps they should answer more like: "I am far, far too stupid to respond to this in writing. My writing skills suck, and I don't communicate well but can at least manage to pull it off in a verbal conversation. Please call." Or maybe, "We are dishonest and will be lying to you about our product. We don't want you to have our lies documented. Please call." And then there's also: "I look busier to my boss when I talk on the phone. If I just send you an email, I won't look busy. Please call." Yeesh.
There appears to be a strong lack of appreciation for the benefits of email, including the "read and respond" anytime nature, the clarity of good writing (especially on technical topics), the historical reference value, and the easy searchability and recall. Somehow these fucking idiots labor under the assumption that a verbal conversation with them is going to somehow be of more use to me than a documented, searchable, archivable email message. They also labor under the assumption that talking to their fucking voicemail or playing phone-tag with them is something that I want to and have time to do.
Frankly, this article looks like the musings of somebody with poor time management skills and who is looking for something/someone to blame for it.
The Attitude Adjuster, I hate me, you can too.
Somewhat related, here's an article that appeared in Salon about a year ago of how some people use email for inter-office political positioning:
9 /c orporate_e_mail/
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/05/0
The Dreaded BCC.
I've received E-mails which, on the surface, was sent just to me, only to have been BBC'd to my superiors. This is especially frustrating/embarassing when E-mail which I replied to is quoted and sent to and individual, who then reply to me with BBCs, so that my previous conversation goes out to parts unknown and is privied to who knows what, and I may have no clue who else is 'listening in'.
I consider the use of BCCs to be sneaky and cowardly, but also as a part of the office culture, so yeah, those E_mails have a life unto their own that you might not know.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
You want to increase office productivity?
It's really easy: Position everyone from CEO in his corner office through cube dweller to mail clerk on his mailbench so that their computer monitors -- what they are currently "working on" -- is viewable by anyone walking casually nearby. Give 'em all big 25" monitors as well.
Anticipated increase: 35%
At the end of each month, have IT run and post a report with every employee's name and the amount of time he spent parked on what particular web sites.
Anticipated Increase: 60%
E-mail, schmee-mail. You want to increase productivity, you restrict web access. Many, many office workers today do not even NEED Web access of ANY kind while on the job. Give these guys an e-mail reading client with word processor capabilitiy. Add a spreadsheet for the Accountants.
Anticipated Increase: 75%
Happy to Help!
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
The article fails to address one important question IMO.
The fact is that for some people, being contactable is absolutely essensial throughout the working day. Personally, I find myself constantly being asked technical questions about a very wide range of subjects as well as having my own work to do. I have to have give answers at some point or others get no work done. If people want to know how to contact me, I have to tell them something!
By default the majority just pick up the phone and call me. This is an absolute disaster when I am in the middle of debugging some complex problem.
Most of the time now when someone phones with a technical question I ask them if they can send me an email about it. After hearing this several times they usually get the message and stop calling at all in favour of sending emails. This has improved my ability to work no end. I now check and answer emails in batches whenever I have a convenient breaking point.
Email has substantially reduced breaks in my concentration. Exactly the opposite of what the author finds.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Yes, they are unproductive but e-mails are also a far less effective method of communicating. Don't get me wrong, I love e-mail for what it can do, however e-mails are by nature very ignorable as illustrated in the article.
I have been lately searching for a job... at first online exclusively via sites like monster.com & craigslist.org-- I sent and sent and sent and resumes and letters, only didn't get any replies for months. Eventually I got discouraged and decided to try one of those job fairs, though I thought I was being blown off (thanks, nothing at this time we'll call you if anything...) I got immediate results.
I think I can attribute this to several things inherent with e-mail:
1) Effort
Sending out an e-mail can take very little time or commitment, so deleting one follows suit. Spam has trained us well.
2) Quantity
Any online correspondence of this nature will attract many more applicants than other methods. While this seems good for employers, it devalues each application further. Not absolutely perfect experience? *delete* This method is unfortunate because often there is a lot more to being able to fit into a working environment than prior history. Sure you know your field, but what good is an employee that's so annoying they can't work in teams with co-workers? That's the sort of thing you can only discern in person.
3) the Human Element
When you meet someone face to face there is a lot more sway in the interaction, you give a real physical person more respect and empathy than you do a page of text. Just look at some of the troll posts you are all familiar with for proof of this phenomenon. I highly doubt Anonymous Cowards ever insult or smack people down IRL as I have seen them do on message boards.
4) the Squeaky Wheel
When you have the benefits of #3 you have a lot more slack given to you, and it is much easier to retain a presence when you correspond via phone or in person simply because you cannot be ignored until convenient.
Many /. readers may not remember the days before email in the workplace (heck, many /. readers may not yet be in the workplace).
Did everyone have face to face conversations, relationships were built, understanding blossomed, conflicts avoided, before email came along and sentenced us to digital solitary confinement?
No.
People wrote memos. Know what "cc" means on the email you send? Carbon Copy, from the old typewriter and carbon paper days. Memos were typed by secretaries (who inevitably had stained hands from the carbon paper), and sent via interoffice mail to the recipient, or slipped onto chairs or under doors late at night if particularly conflict laden.
Discussions were drawn out over weeks instead of hours, with each memo salvo taking a day or two.
Email doesn't allow us to avoid our co-workers - trust me, that that invented long before digital anything. It just gives us a lower environmental impact way of doing it.
Does email provide us with interruption time shifting, as the article suggests? Yes, but so does going through one's paper "in-bin".
Nothing new, just faster, more efficient, lower cost, lower impact time wasting.
It creates a paper trail so we can later go back and follow the thought processes that led to either the award winning design that saved the world, or the "oops" that irradiated Canada.
--- Ban humanity.
Now, if only I could keep from checking slashdot every hour, I would be all set!
Sounds like the author needs to brush off his copy of Peopleware. Wearing headphones in a cubicle blocks out the interruptions, but doesn't make you a more effective worker.
The test: two groups of programmers are given a convoluted mathematical problem and are tasked to write a program that solves it. One group works in silence. The other gets tunes to listen to.
The trick: the problem is actually an identity function; the output is just the input.
The results:Nearly everyone wrote a working program. But more people in the silence group discovered it was an identity function and came threw with a one-liner.
Conclusion? Apparently some part of your brain is active when you've got background music on, and is otherwise unavailable for those creative insights, bouts of genius, or other epiphanies. If you work in a cube, it's time to revolt!
All the parent says is "this article is not useful for me". If that's all it takes, here goes:
I am an air traffic controller. I am required to answer planes as soon as they contact me. It is expected, that I stop hyperventilating from stress and answer the radio ASAP, in case the problem being reported is an emergency.
And, being salaried, i don't get paid to work late nights and such (thank goodness, since I've already got an ulcer).
Also, head phones aren't allowed in my office, because if a plane is about to crash it can make them feel ignored.
So, great advise. Wish i could use. it.
Jon Katz, is that you?
I do not have a signature
The article mentions proper spelling and grammar in e-mails. I have another problem, the use of ellipses...people...seem to think...that... randomly placing ellipses...all over...their message...will somehow... absolve them...of punctuation... when all it really does...is annoy. Did they... pick it up...from Japanese...RPG games?
What does that symbol even mean anymore? Like if one period means pause three periods must be really dramatic!
Really, it's like "Man I don't know if a comma goes here, this elipse will fool everyone! I'm brilliant!" I'm not a grammar nazi or anything, I just hate reading IM/e-mails from people that do this. Even the damn article has some ellipses in it.
So if you're one of those people who does this, please stop. For...the love... of god.
I don't see a point to this article at all. Leaving my email client open lets people decide when they want to talk to me? Huh?
Turn your email client off? Are you kidding? Doesn't this guy realize that not all of us can use mutt or kmail or whatever at work, we're forced to use Outlook, which takes eons to startup, and even longer - oddly enough - to shut off (a feat only MS programmers could accomplish I think).
Nothing, I mean nothing breaks one's concentration like a fucking constantly ringing telephone, and having to log into voice mail and constantly check the messages that were left while you were talking on the phone. Or what about when you're trying to talk to someone about something important, but they're on the goddamn phone yapping and won't get off, because it lets them feel superior to you to make you wait to talk, and the phone is always more important than a face to face conversation. Telephones are the problem, I would gladly work without them at all.
IMHO, e-mail is a great way to communicate information
- when no immediate response (if any) is required
- when you need to give multiple people the same information
- to keep a record/reminder of the information (such as when warning about an impending event, like scheduled downtime, etc.)
Unfortunately, in my experience, people rarely consider which is the best way to communicate. As a result, the wrong medium often is used.Case in point: people where I work have not developed good communication patterns. A lot of information is passed face-to-face, one person at a time. As a result,
- I frequently am interrupted while trying to program to be told something that is not urgent and requires no response or action on my part
- different people get told different things, so rarely do people have the same information, and no one knows what the other people know
- often, some people never get the information at all
- a lot more time is wasted dealing with the consequences when a 1-minute e-mail could have saved a lot of bother
- when I do send e-mail to my colleagues, it often is filtered into a folder and ignored/forgotten; often this results in me having to have a F2F conversation with someone to repeat the information anyway
Similarly, in other places I've worked, meetings were wasted passing on information that could have been better served with e-mail, while critical information that should have been discussed in meetings wasn't.Anyway, I think it just boils down to that old adage: the right tool for the job.
The interruptions are the problem. Whether these are phone calls or E-mail-notifications or people visiting.
Or when people call on the phone because they want to know if I have received their E-mails...
The problem seems to be that a lot of people think E-mails are something that is always to be replied to immediately, as if they were phone calls. I do not know why this is; ordinary paper-mail is certainly asynchronous, and any kind of written letter (paper or electronic) requires about the same amount of thought anyways.
Time and time again, I tell them: I will read the E-mail and answer it when it is convenient to do so. Most of the time this seems to be grudgingly accepted; the exceptions are when the mail is about some bad system bug that demands immediate attention. And some people never seem to be able to understand why they have to wait more than 10 minutes for a reply. Must be their jobs that have all this urgency; well, I've got deadlines as well so we will have to live with it! Besides, I have to think of an answer.
Otherwise, while in bug-fixing mode, phone, E-mails, and face-to-face meetings have all their good and bad points. Phone conversations are great for getting error information from the user, most of them can read off a dialog box, and I can tell them to click this and that and immediate evaluate responses. When it comes to correcting them by having to edit some configuration data however, phone is terrible. Imagine trying to dictate URLs or code full of important punctuation-marks and hope to get it right ...
And here is exactly where E-mail excels. I can type up the correct texts in the mail itself or in an attached file, and tell the recipients exactly where to put them for things to start working again. But doing the active troubleshooting (in the style of "try this ... hmm ... try that ... nope, how about you do this and then try ... ah! it crashed. OK can you read me the stack-trace... ") over E-mail is slow and cumbersome.
E-mail also has the great advantage of persisting after the fact. I do not intend to, nor manage, to remember every little detail talked about on the phone, neither do the people at the other end of the line. Instead, when an E-mail from last month is lying around, this makes it easier to pick up the thread where we left it.
Face-to-face meetings are most useful when evaluating features, testing, or simply for "showing the flag" to the customers. Makes them feel appreciated, and we all know what an asset satisfied customers are.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
I've gotten into the bad habit of emailing with co-workers to arrange lunch gatherings...
Now, unfortunately, every time time that little new email chime rings on my computer, I begin to drool uncontrollably!
More importantly. Emails prove that you said what you said. On the phone there is no record and it's just you against the other guy and if the other guy is the boss or more senior then you usually lose. With an email in their face they don't stand a chance.
I have successfully defended many a project decision by pulling out a critical email.
...but kept getting alerts from my email client.
See my Home Theater
"T-Y-R, no, R, R like Raymond, A, like Ananas, N, no, not M, N like Nancy, ..."
- Could you repeat, just to make sure I have it right?
Achille Talon
Hop!
Fight the power! Use "email".
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
Personally, I strongly perfer email to the phone. Why?
You can check your email when you're done with what you're in the middle of.
You don't have to respond right away, you can find the correct and complete answer.
Reduced accent errors. Ever work in a place with people from India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Germany, England, US, Vietnam, and the Phillipines? Sometimes it's hard to tell what everyone is saying even though it's all in English.
It keeps a record. You don't need to remember exactly what the guy said, it's written down! Very handy for part numbers.
You know who you're dealing with. "Hey, this is Mike..." on the phone is replaced with something like "Mike Smith -mike.smith@company.com-". You're not dealing with Mike Jones.
Long, technical matters can be spelled out in detail. If a procedure on how to do something can be spelled out in words, it's more likely to be followed without errors than if it's orally passed over a half hour phone conversation.
Cool down period. If you're getting upset and starting to argue, you can pause, cool down, and take care of it with a cool head isntead of ending up in a verbal flamefest.
---
If you want something that breaks your concentration, it's not email, it's the phone and PA systems.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
I will send 10 emails a day to the person in the cube right next to me. I just don't like to talk to the guy in person or the phone...He annoys me and he is lazy. Yet because we share certain physical resources (programmers) I have to keep a line of communication open. I only tend to verbally communicate with people I can stand. For as much as I HATE email in gerneral, this is one good thing about it.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Email is one of the greatest things the computer revolution has done for personal productivity. Used improperly, it can alsohurt your productivity. This article discusses ways to use email effectively. Then it goes beyond that and talks about how to be productive, period.
I'm not going to list all the reasons email is good. You know them already, I assume you are an avid email user. (Anyone reading this is online, and just about anyone who goes online uses email.) I'm also not going to tell you email is evil, because it isn't.The negativeproductivity impact of email comes from the way you use it, not the medium itself.
There are two ways email impairs your productivity:
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
1. It breaks your concentration.
2. It misleads you into inefficient problem solving.
I have to agree -- its so hard to focus on my work, when I'm trying to concentrate, and I have an email notification take me away from what I'm doing. How am I supposed to get any work done when ... oh, wait a second, someone's calling me on the phone ... brb
As another timesaver/productivity enhancement, I strongly recommend choosing either a "blank" homepage for your browser or a static "non-interesting" page.
:)
I have Slashdot as my homepage and find that I stand a very strong chance of being distracted every time I open a new browser window!
In fact, I'm supposed to be browsing our Javadoc to find the name of a function right now - but instead I got suckered by yet another slashdot headline...
I've been at my company over ten years, and had the same email account for about seven. No matter how many filters I put in, I get *shitloads* of spam every day. (Changing my email addy would be a nightmare because I get so many legit mails a day as well.) If I responded to emails immediately, as everyone else in the company has apparently been trained to, I would *never* get any work done. And since I'm in charge of my section, this could be a slight productivity problem. :)
You must think in Russian.
But I work at a datacentre for a major bank and they are extremely touchy about software and (network stability and all that) so we don't get IMs at all. This morning I solved that problem by 'coding' and instant messenger that included history tracking using nothing but batch files, built-in-windows executables, using the windows "NET SEND" command. It works quite nicely and already saved me a bunch of time today getting information.
So if you want the efficiency of IMs but none of the software, I suggest you use NET SEND. It caught on like today with a bunch of other people in my area.
(Please, spare the jokes about using windows on a network when stability is critical. They're only dumb terminals used to launch xterms to access the mighty solaris server.)