I had a traditionally busy day today… Wall-to-wall phone meetings, punctuated by some recreational programming. Not all bad. The one highlight that I had was a conference call at which a friend of mine, Luis, was talking about his life beyond email.
That’s right, I said life beyond email. I must admit I was skeptical. The premise of his talk was that using social networking, or the enterprise equivalent of social networking, one could free oneself from the daily burden Of picking your way through a huge mail inbox. I assume most of you can sympathize with this problem. I personally get between 100 and 300 emails a day and attempt to answer everyone. Most nights I go to bed with my email more full than when I woke up and so by the end of the week I have a mountain that I have to struggle through over the weekend. Worse yet, going through email takes away from actual time of doing things. I once heard someone say that email is a task list managed for you by other people.
As skeptical as I was, I listened with interest as he told us how he had gone from one day of having hundreds of emails like me to his current situation where he gets one or two emails that he responds to every day. I want that inbox… I’ll bet you do too. His suggestion on how to get to that point was stunning… He suggested you just stop answering email. What? Stop answering email? How would that work?

I don’t know…. But whats the worst that could happen ?

Night all, night Sam
– Me

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