Sick of Email?

Blackberries, Outlook, Gmail oh, my!  Saturation of information in this age is all too common for most people in their 9 to 5.  Our CEO wrote two great Articles a while back entitled, "The Good in Email" and "The Bad in Email."  I highly recommend reading those, as you'll find a great discussion thread along with some really interesting points. 

I don't think, however, he strongly pressed the central reason we're all sick of email; simply, there's too much of it!  Hotmail now offers 5 Gigs in their free plan.  Just a few short years ago it was 5 MB.  It's like we all went on an information binge over Christmas and are waking up the day after New Year's wanting a way to lipo our inbox.  But is there a good way to distill all the information we swap? 

I think there is!  I started using Central Desktop just recently.  However, it has dramatically reduced my dependence on email.  Some attributes I find particularly slimming are:

File Uploads in Tasks

If you expand the task, then open the comments feature, you can upload or put a hyperlink to a file directly into the task itself.  Not only am I now worry free about where things are in a workspace, but others can see exactly what I'm up to and how far along I am in a specific task without having to email me with the inquiry. 

Revisions to Documents

The freedom to check out a document, revise it and check it back in is such an incredible feature.  I can do this from anywhere files are able to be uploaded in a workspace.  Now, I don't have to send an email with revisions to people and they don't have to send their update back to me through email. 

Daily Digest

This is one email a day, as opposed to fifty separate notes.  It's simple and succinct.  I know what everyone who I share a workspace has done that day.  And they can be confident I am keeping up with the work that affects me.  Without this, I'd be sending and receiving a ton of email in order to get the same amount of information. 

I'm sure I'll come up with more features that keep my inbox in shape.  In the meantime, I'd love to hear some ideas from you.  If you're anything like me, working out is hardest by yourself!  Let's keep our email fitness together.