Luis Suarez is free. In a recent article in the New York Times website he shared his story of how he cut down on his email dependency. Instead of email, he now uses tools offered by his company (IBM) and RSS feeds to connect with colleagues. He does have a point. Here are some interesting email stats that show just how pervasive email has become:
According to the EmailStatCenter:
- 274 is the average number of personal emails people receive weekly. - David Daniels, Vice President JupiterResearch (Dec. 2007)
- 304 is the average number of business emails received weekly. - David Daniels, Vice President JupiterResearch (Dec. 2007)
- 74% of email uses have 2 email accounts. - David Daniels, Vice President JupiterResearch (Dec. 2007)
- 87% of consumers’ online time is spent reading their emails. - David Daniels, Vice President JupiterResearch (Dec. 2007)
I advocate scheduling email time and limiting it to 2-3 times a day, but I don’t always take my own advice. Email is a compulsion. If you’re not quite sure what to work on, you can check your email. If you don’t want to tackle a task, you can put it off by checking your email.
But I would like to manage email better and I’m intrigued by Luis’ solution. Part of it is that I’m tired of handling old email. Some email just can’t be sorted. But in order for his ideas to work, others have to buy into it. In my case, I’d use instant messaging and Twitter. That means that other people I work with need to have the same IM service and sign up for Twitter.
The advantage that Luis has is that IBM has its own in-house networking system similar to Facebook. But even that becomes cumbersome for me because I have multiple “jobs”. As it is I belong to more social networks than I can handle. I don’t think I can manage joining several work-related networks as well.
Still, I think I’m going to figure out a way to make it work. But first I’m going to check my email.
4 Users Responded in " Freedom From Email "
Great topic! I know one of my biggest issues with email right now is - yep, you guessed it - spam.
Although, I’m frustrated beyond belief because of two very different issues about spam. I’m bombarded by an unbelievably amount of spam on a regular basis. However, this is partly my choice. I refuse to add any other extra forms of spam blockers to my email because there’s way too many legitimate emails that are getting blocked every single day by programs that are already installed on my email services. Grrr - it’s such a double-edged sword.
Being in business, it’s super important for me to be able to receive all legitimate emails. My email is part of the lifeblood of my business. Too many times someone finally gets through to me mentioning that they’ve tried several times to reach me. Ugh - but I’ll get hundreds of more than obvious spam? Frustration!!
One solution that I’m going to try soon is to implement a helpdesk/support ticket system on all of my websites. I simply cannot count on the email system!
Hey - thanks for letting me vent a bit!
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