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E-Mail Addiction 12-Steps Stumbles

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the big-shock-here dept.

netbuzz writes "Talk about offering an alcoholic a drink? No. 2 of 12-step program for e-mail addiction: "Commit to keeping your inbox empty." ... Reuters is reporting today on this program from an executive coach. Here are 11 other reasons why it won't work." I know what the bottom of my inbox looks like, I just only get to see it for a few minutes a year.

4 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. What about spam? by Valdez · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's interesting that the 12 steps don't mention anything about mitigating or reducing SPAM... seems like it should be step 0 to me.

    A large portion of the time spent on many people's email is deleting & weeding through SPAM, and if you didn't get a single piece of spam, you'd spend a lot less time in your inbox...and what time you did spend would be productive.

  2. Re:This is just GTD by mwvdlee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or just start to realize that you recieve roughly ZERO mails a year that need a 2-minute response.

    Honestly; if people want 2-minute responses, why would they use a medium that most people don't checks every 2 minutes. Use the phone!

    Are you really willing to say that the maximum time between sitting at your desk, walking to the toilet, taking a dump then returning to your desk is 2 minutes? Are all your company meetings 2 minutes? Do you take 2-minute lunchbreaks? Do you ever sleep, have weekends, vacations for less than 2 minutes? Do you make love within 2 minutes? Actually, don't answer that last one; this is slashdot afterall.

    If you're addicted to e-mail, you're probably thinking people cannot do without your response. You're wrong.

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  3. Re:Don't Organize by schiefaw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Absolutely! I went through the "Getting Things Done" class, and I am trying to use parts of it. When it comes to emptying the inbox I cheat like crazy. Company policy dictates that anything in the inbox gets automatically deleted after 30 day. So, I have a folder called "reference" when I just drop everything in my inbox after I have read them. I then use Google Desktop to search for the correct messages when needed. I have saved a TON of time.

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  4. Re:Speaking of email, is there a Tbird extension.. by Joe+Rumsey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes there is, GmailUI. I'm NOT suggesting GMail. The name of this Thunderbird extension is GMailUI because it adds several GMail features to Thunderbird, including making the y key move the current email to an archive folder.