{"id":494,"date":"2012-04-15T09:01:26","date_gmt":"2012-04-15T15:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joshualyman.com\/?p=494"},"modified":"2012-05-21T13:05:44","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T19:05:44","slug":"email-is-not-broken-we-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joshualyman.com\/2012\/04\/email-is-not-broken-we-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Email is not broken, we are."},"content":{"rendered":"

There seems to be a constant flow of “email is\/is not broken” articles on HN and various other places. Some of them are very business-oriented<\/a>, and some of them are scathing rejections<\/a>\u00a0(language). But most of them miss the point. Email as a system is not broken, but we, through our email behaviors, are broken.<\/p>\n

Nearly all of the articles written recently about fixing email have concentrated on technology and building a better client or implementing the specs more closely or bringing two systems together. These are all great ideas and have a ton of value, but they will not fix the inherent issue that people are experiencing with email, but which most articles fail to articulate: we think email is broken because we are overwhelmed by it and get less real work done because of it.<\/p>\n

So instead of asking how we can make email better\/faster\/cooler, we need to ask ourselves how we can get more work done while still using email. Unfortunately, many experiences have shown over the past decade or so that this problem is not easily solved by new technology, as much as I would love that. It is solved by teaching people better email behaviors. This is certainly a less sexy solution, but guess what? It’s the attainable one. Here are some ideas that I’ve come across from others, and that warrant further investigation. They are all designed to help us get more real work done<\/em>, which is the real problem with the email timesink.<\/p>\n