When email doesn’t work…ah - the blessed day

I came in to work this morning and heard two wonderful words - email’s down (I guess it would be three if you count the contraction).  What a blessing.  For a few glorious minutes, hours, or even maybe a day - no one will be able to reach me via email.  Don’t get me wrong - email is still my preferred method of communication.  However, after being off work sick for three days last week, I’m backlogged in a way that just shouldn’t be permitted.  More than 89 items which still require action after a cursory read of the more than 300 messages in my inbox.  I delegated 20 or 30 of them relatively quickly, deleted, filed, or quickly responded to more than 100 that were junk or “just FYI” or quick yes and no answers.  Yet I’m left with these 89 action items, with due dates in some imposed by the sender (I need this by tomorrow is the best one - since I got it last Wednesday and was out sick, do I even need to respond?). 

 Email is so abused in our culture.  We’ve used it as a way to get around face-to-face communication about difficult situations and as a way to cover our own butts when we think something might go wrong in a situation.  So..here’s to hoping that the techno-Gods keep email in its proper place for a while - turned off.  Perhaps that’s an idea for a staff development day - turnt he email server off for a day or two even once per month to allow people the opportunity to get caught up. Like casual Fridays, but we could call it no email Thursday. 

This entry was posted on January 17, 2007 at 8:37 am and is filed under random thoughts, gtd. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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