Published on August 18th, 2008 | by scott
0Sick of Email?
Email Overload
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 document sharing 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.
Related Posts
Don’t send that email: business email etiquette →
Work distractions are making you dumber →
Case study: CareerBuilder →
