The Tyranny of Email 427
Circuit Breaker writes "Are you or your co-workers using email instead of phone, face to face conversations, or instant messaging? Read this article, and hand out copies to your mates."
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The Tyranny of Email
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BLISS is ignorance.
Every office I've worked in.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Consider yourself lucky (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Consider yourself lucky (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Consider yourself lucky (Score:5, Funny)
And both of them are on speakerphone. AAARRRGGGG!
Re:Consider yourself lucky (Score:3, Funny)
Meanwhile I sit beside a manager who's native language is French and if you've ever been to queerbec you know how boisterous they can get. His french buddy comes by a half dozen times a day and all I hear is "Pouvoir Boivoir Voulaiz Sucretz Viva bonjoir!" one decibel short of shouting for the next 20 minutes.
Then you got the ones who for some reason think that the office phone is not enough for them and have to leave their cell phones on so everyone can listen to their stupid customized ringer tootin the theme to the A-Team or something. At least take it with you or turn it off when you leave your desk.
Thank god for email! Unlike speaking or the phone, it doesn't make noise, other people's email doesn't distract you, you don't have to read it immediately, and you can ignore the little envelope icon until you are finished with your current task.
Re:Every office I've worked in.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Every office I've worked in.... (Score:3, Interesting)
E-mail is better for when you want to explain something in detail to someone or send them a document. Even then, I think it's better to put the document somewhere they have access to it and tell them where to get it. E-mail was designed for plain text and should remain that way
Office IMs (Score:3, Interesting)
But I work at a datacentre for a major bank and they are extremely touchy about software and (network stability and all that) so we don't get IMs at all. This morning I solved that problem by 'coding' and instant messenger that included history tracking using nothing but batch files, built-in-windows executables, using the windows "NET SEND" command. It works quite nicely and already saved me a bunch of time today getting information.
So if you want the efficiency of IMs but none of the software, I suggest you use NET SEND. It caught on like today with a bunch of other people in my area.
(Please, spare the jokes about using windows on a network when stability is critical. They're only dumb terminals used to launch xterms to access the mighty solaris server [sun.com].)
Re:Every office I've worked in.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology so often times is the reason why we're not more productive...
Do I have to (Score:5, Funny)
Fascinating article (Score:5, Funny)
(whoops...)
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Abe: [grabbing bottle] Lemme sell it, you idjit.
Well... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Funny)
The mind boggles.
Tom.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Geppeto? Is that you? It's me, Pinocchio!! I'm trapped in a whale and all I have is a laptop with 802.11b access. I think I'm near a Starbucks or McDonalds somewhere close to shore. Please send help!
Slashdotted (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)
the mirror
Multi-Task (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Multi-Task (Score:5, Insightful)
The phones just nasty and intrusive.
Email's great, you can forget what you read, but then find it later to recap. ( I send myself emails all the time!)
You can proof important emails to avoid a slip of the tounge.
And most importantly emails can be sorted and prioritised.
Record of what was said (Score:4, Insightful)
I have successfully defended many a project decision by pulling out a critical email.
A smaller problem than.. (Score:4, Insightful)
At least for me it is.
Re:A smaller problem than.. (Score:3, Funny)
Two points - not quite, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
1. It breaks your concentration.
2. It misleads you into inefficient problem solving.
I'll go with the second one, as you don't get any hands on experience, or any ad hoc give and take communication about the problems you are addressing. Meetings, phone calls, and face to face are really required for a lot of complex problems. (Many cut and dry tech questions can still be answered efficiently in email, however).
The first point-- that it "breaks your concentration-- to me is a matter of personal reaction to email. Are you compulsively checking it? Do you have audio and visual cues blasting you when something hits your inbox?
I check my email at work frequently, but between phone calls and meetings and moments of work where I need to concentrate. And I certainly don't have the mailbox yelling at me or popping up reminders. My clients, coworkers, et al all get their answers in a timely fashion, just not instantaneously at all times.
IM, on the other hand, is a different story. We're now using Lotus SameTime, and I find myself using the "I am Away" option quite frequently. Maybe the thrust of the article should have been IM and its annoyances?
Re:Two points - not quite, IMO (Score:3, Interesting)
I leave mine running, and just check it when I feel like it.
Re:Two points - not quite, IMO (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Two points - not quite, IMO (Score:3, Insightful)
There are things that I prefer to talk face to face. But for some others, email is the best way of communications.
About IMs, I agree that it break your concentration. One of the advantages of email is that you takes care of them in your own time, but IM seems to be more used than phone if you see some friend online.
Re:Two points - not quite, IMO (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree fully. The telephone is much more of an interruption of concentration than email, by far -- but if my mail client were beeping or jangling at me whenever new mail comes in, I might see it the other way.
#ifdef NERD_METAPHORS
I do both coding and technical support in the course of my work. If I am in the middle of writing a piece of code and the phone rings, I have to do a mental stack backtrace to get out of "Python mode" and into "speaking English to humans mode". This leaves the large amount of program state I was holding in my head in a shambles that I have to completely reconstruct before I can get back to coding.
However, if I receive an email, I will check it once I have reached some kind of pausing point in the code -- finish writing a function or module, or get the comments of what the current block is going to do sketched out. The user gets almost as fast of service (since I write small functions) and I get more code written. So email works much better in the course of my dual coding/support job than the phone does.
#endif /* NERD_METAPHORS */
However, I know people who use Eudora and have it set to full-on noisy mode, with the pop-up dialog box and the loud doo-DOO-doo! sound effect whenever new mail comes in. Gah. I could never work that way.
Re:Two points - not quite, IMO (Score:3, Interesting)
Spot on (Score:4, Insightful)
Turning off my e-mail client and taking advantage of the asynchronous nature of e-mail even more would probably boost my productivity a lot. Not being a programmer, I still recognize that in order to get something done one must really sit down uninterrupted to get _real_ work done. And having pointless e-mails popping up every once in a while _is_ needless interruptions.
Not exactly rocket science but once in a while one should make sure that technology is working for oneself and not (too much) the other way around.
--
This is what I was able to capture.. (Score:2, Informative)
When Email Goes Bad
I'm not going to list all the reasons email is good. You know them already, I assume you are an avid email user. (Anyone reading this is online, and just about anyone who goes online uses email.) I'm also not going to tell you email is evil, because it isn't.The negativeproductivity impact of email comes from the way you use it, not the medium itself.
There are two ways email impairs your productivity:
Let's take the concentration impact first. I'm a software engineer, and programming requires extended periods of concentration. Actually this isn't unique to programming, a lot of fields require that you concentrate. (Probably just about everything worth doing requires some concentration!)
One of the key attributes of email is that it queues messages. Unlike face-to-faceconversation and 'phone calls, people can communicate via email without both paying attention at the same time. You pick the moments at which you pay attention to email. But many people leave their email client running continuously. This is the biggest baddest reason why email hurts your productivity. If you leave your email client running, it means anyone anytime can interrupt what you're doing. Essentially they pick the moments at which you pay attention. (Even somerandom spammer who is sending you a crappy ad for a get-rich scheme.) This is bad.
There are three stages to this badness. Stage one is configuring your email client to present alerts when you receive an email. Don't do this. Stage two is configuring your email client to make noise when you receive an email. Don't do this. Stage three is running your email client all the time. Don't do this, either. To be effective, you must pick the moments at which you're going to receive email. I know this goes against common wisdom. Just about everyone I know runs their client all the time, has it configured to make noise, and may even have it present alerts when an email is received. Don't do it.
Spam is the best kind of email to get, because you look at it quickly, see that it's spam, and delete it. Then you get back to work. Personal email is the second best kind of email to get, because you either respond quickly("Hi Jane, great hearing from you. See you at the club tonight.") or set it aside for later. Task-oriented work email is the worst kind of email to get. It often requires thought, and because it is work there is some immediacy to it. But as soon as you take the time to respond, you've interrupted yourself. You've shifted back to "left brain mode", and you've lost the thread of your concentration.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't respond to emails promptly. Check email whenever you're interrupted anyway - before you start work, after a meeting, after lunch, before you go home, etc. Set aside time to do this. Just don't let others dictate the timing.
Has this ever happened to you?
It has happened to me. Sometimes I can't believe it - I sent the email at 9:30, and here it is 11:30, and they haven't checked their email? What are they doing? They're being efficient, that's what. They're picking their moment to be interrupted, and that's a good thing. We'll revisit this theme again below in the Three Hour Rule. For now, here's the takeaway:
Okay, now let's look at the second productivity-sapping attribute of email, that it misleads you into inefficient problem solving. Email is a communication medium. You send messages to others, you receive messages from others. Some of these messages are mere data transmission - FYIs so you know what's going on. Some are "noise" - 'thank you's, 'I got it's, jokes, etc. And some - many - are problem solving. You hear about a problem, and you respond with a possible solution, or a possible approach, or more questions. Nothing wrong so far - email is a good medium for problem solving. And it is so easy - you get an email, you think (sometimes), and you respond. Poof, you're done.
Except when you're not. Because there are some kinds of problems which don't get solved in email, ever. And as soon as you have that kind of problem, you have to stop, immediately, before you make the problem worse.
First, never, ever, criticize someone in email. For reasons which I have never fully grasped, any negative emotion is always amplified by communication through email. Sometimes you intend to be critical - someone has done something dumb, or said something silly, or emailed something ridiculous. Resist the urge to reply. Sometimes you don't mean to be critical - you're just making an observation, or engaging in technical debate, or adding facts to a discussion. But as soon as you sense that the recipient has taken your email as criticism, you must immediately switch media - a face-to-face meeting is best, but a 'phone call is also okay.
Second, don't get into prolonged technical debates in email. I've seen threads lasting weeks with a whole series of kibitzers, with everyone restating their points of view and nothing getting settled. Often email has the effect of polarizing the debate, and the combatants end up further apart in their views then when the debate began. As soon as you sense this happening, you must immediately switch media. A meeting with the core people involved in best, but a conference call is also okay.
Both of these kinds of problems which don't get solved in email are exacerbated by copying others. The bigger the audience, the worse things get. As bad as it is to be critical in email, it is far worse if ten colleagues are copied. Often the presence of an email audience is what makes for the polarization of technical debates - if the core people were the only onesinvolved, they would be less virulent and more willing to acknowledge other points of view and seek compromise. Okay, so here's the takeaway:
Before I go on to talking about productivity in general, let me share someother thoughts about email. First, be judicious in who you send email to, and who you copy on emails. Every email recipient is going to lose a little time reading each email you send. Simple emails which say "thanks" or "got it" or "see you at the meeting" are polite and part of normal human communication. But there is a limit, no need to reply "you're welcome", or "glad you got it", or "great, I'll see you, too". In my career I've run large teams, and sometimes people in those teams copied me on virtually every email they sent. Maybe they wanted me to know what was going on, or maybe they were letting me know what a great job they were doing. Either way, they were taking my time with stuff I didn't need to spend time on. I have a high capacity for skimming email, but there is always the feeling that they didn't get it; like "why did they copy me on this?" There should be a purpose to every addressee on each email. It is okay to drop recipients from a reply - in fact, it is good; less people are involved, and [to reiterate the point] the bigger the audience, the more any implied criticism or debate will be exacerbated.
Second, email is a very relaxed medium, but observing some formality is important. Use an email client which spell checks. Use normal capitalization. Use correct grammar - complete sentences make email easier to read just like everything else. Don't use weird background colors and strange fonts. Don't append pictures of your dog. You get the picture... I've received emails from senior people which bordered on illiterate, with incorrect capitalization, grammar, incomplete sentences, etc. The impression is not positive.
Third, email can be immediate, but don't hesitate to review and revise important emails. In many companies email has all but replaced paper memos. In many business situations email has replaced letters. When writing an email which has a wide distribution, or which affects a negotiation, or possible deal, or potential sale, take the time to write a draft, and reread it later. You can almost always improve the wording, make a point more concisely, or other otherwise improve the communication.
Finally, remember that email is a public and permanent record. Email is plain text and goes out over public networks, and is often stored on servers for a long time and may be backed up for a longer time. It might feel "throwaway" at the time, but it will not be thrown away, as senior executives at Microsoft, Enron, Worldcom, and others have discovered. If you have something to say which won't bear the public light of day, it shouldn't be said in email. And if you are sending something confidential or sensitive, consider sending it as an encrypted and/or password-protected attachment.
Okay, enough about email. Here's the six rules for avoiding email tyranny :
Got it? Cool. Thinking about email productivity led me to make some comments about productivity in general...
Programming is a right-brain activity. It is very conceptual and spatial and [gasp!] artistic. Effective programming requires that you transition from your body's normal "left brain" mode into a "right brain" zone. As I mentioned above, programming cannot be done in less than three-hour windows. Really. And in talking to friends in other fields, I'm convinced this applies to many other lines of work.
When you're in a three-hour zone, you've spun up to speed, gathered your concentration, shifted into "right brain mode", and are focusing on a problem. You're being productive. There are four things which can interrupt you, and you have to watch out for all of them:
Let's talk about each of these... First, emails or 'phone calls. Email we've talked about, this one is easy - just turn your email client off. Done. Mostpeople receive far less 'phone calls than emails, so calls aren't nearly as much of a problem. The solution is the same - put your phone in "do not disturb" mode. Nowadays most everyone has a cell 'phone, leave that on, and if there is a genuine emergency your significant other or doctor or whomever will reach you there. Most calls to your desk are colleagues or customers; these are important, but as with email, you should pick the time to take them.
Second, there is personal contact with colleagues. Most companies these days can't afford for everyone to have a private office, so it is pretty easy to get interrupted. (If you have an office, close the door!) Distractions include ambient noise, questions ("Hey, do you know how to invoke a framitz?"), and other interruptions ("Hey, you want to play foosball?"). These are really important (especially foosball), but they are interruptions, and they will mess up your three-hour window. Basically you want to isolate yourself from your colleagues, just like with email and 'phone calls. To deal with ambient noise, get yourself some really good headphones and play music. Cordless, if you want. For $100 [google.com] you will have the best-sounding music you can imagine, and a sure-fire way to eliminate background noise.
Dealing with questions and interruptions from colleagues is more difficult. The give-and-take between engineers in a team is important; often one person will have the answer to another's dilemma. There is also the social aspect, it is enjoyable to interact with your colleagues. However, you need to have those three-hour windows. I recommend a simple sign you can hang on your cube: "I'm in a zone", "Do not disturb", etc. (This is a chance to be creative...) Essentially you want your colleagues to know you're zoning. If they have a technical question which can wait, they can put it in email, or wait until you emerge. If they need immediate attention ("hey, you want to play foosball?") at least they know you were in a zone, and that they're interrupting you.
Third, meetings... Ah yes. An entire book can be written about meetings, and many have [barnesandnoble.com]. Let me make a few comments about meetings and then leave it. Meetings interrupt everyone who attends, obviously, so they
(I will post the rest when I can..)
Re:This is what I was able to capture.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Alternate Title (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe... (Score:2)
Dertouzos said it best... (Score:3, Informative)
It's just so easy... (Score:5, Funny)
PHB: Hey Bob, where's that report?
Bob: Didn't Alice send it to you? I emailed to let her know that she needed to do that...
PHB: Hmm... Anybody seen Alice?
That happens all too often, in which case Alice is completely justified to take a fresh pot of coffee and pour it down Bob's pants.
Great advice (Score:4, Funny)
haven't read it... (Score:2)
Email to CYA (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's not in an email it never happened. Even when I have a conversation, I feel obliged to follow up with an email summarising the points to make sure we're all on the same page (excuse the management speak).
Re:Email to CYA (Score:3, Insightful)
CYA indeed.
Re:Email to CYA (Score:3, Interesting)
Our office uses Lotus, and has a policy where it autodeletes e-mails after 60 days. So history didn't start until 60 days ago!
Unfortunatly (Score:5, Insightful)
And, being salaried, i don't get paid to work late nights and such (which doesn't stop me, but doesn't motivate me either).
Also, head phones aren't allowed in my office, because if a user comes in with a question it can make them feel ignored.
So. great advise. Wish i could use. it.
Re:Unfortunatly (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of IM ?! (Score:2)
Eh ? How the hell is using email instead of IM a problem ? Face 2 Face is obvious best, a phone call is polite. But where is IM better than email, short notes written over the top of each other in a normally semi-coherent manner, at least people tend to think more about emails.
Emails work for some things "I'll be working at home tommorow" and not for others "Your son has been killed in a freak milkshake accident". But to complain that people don't use IM and use email instead is just bizarre. Sure its "interactive" but its still impersonal and you don't know who is actually at the other end.
Different communication mechanisms have different places. Like in the UN Security council. Communicating via phones might work, face to face might work, but sending a small piece of paper saying "Pay the Bearer the Sum of $5 billion" appears to be much more effective, horses for courses.
At least you get a written record.. (Score:2, Interesting)
When people give you verbal instructions, I find that when they forget to ask you to do something, they often try to turn it around and make out that they *did* tell you.
People should use email because it's an efficient tool but I guess I use it mainly to cover my own back.
Sounds interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Memo
To: CEO's
From: Jim
Date: 9/25/2002
Re: A Memo about Memo's
At the risk of sounding like a Delbert cartoon:
Yes, this is a Memo about the use of Memo's.
There have been several instances lately of inadequate communication, where the use of a Memo may have improved the understanding, or even prevented a problem.
First, I want to emphasize that the best form of communication is face-to-face; the second best is via telephone. Both of those methods allow the free flow exchange of ideas, with immediate feedback. The face-to-face advantage is the "body language" that most people can't hide, even if they tried. An example is a supervisor instructing a subordinate, who says:
Email is becoming another popular form of communication; it has its advantages, and its shortfalls. An email documents, as succinctly as the author can write it, just what is intended, no more, no less, and complete with a date and time. But a series of emails is not as efficient as a conversation.
Now to the heart of my message: many times, a conversation should be followed up by a Memo. It serves to record whatever was agreed upon, and can be copied to all appropriate individuals, without losing anything ''in translation". Memo's can be sent via email, fax, or courier. They may generate related Memo's in response, which can serve to document progress.
When using emails for this purpose, it is often best to string them together, so that all related emails or attached Memo's, can be referenced. If you are worried that an email may get automatically deleted or archived before the issue is resolved, it is wise to save it to a folder, or even print it if necessary.
It is generally advisable to specify responsibilities and expectations of respective individuals in your Memo's, including deadlines. Sometimes, you may wish to copy the Memo to a supervisor and/or senior management, so they can be apprised of the issue at hand.
Let's review:
1) While they don't replace conversations, Memo's are used to summarize understandings
2) Send to those directly involved, copy to others when appropriate, and list the author (you)
3) Date and title the Memo
4) Summarize understandings or instructions, complete with assignments and deadlines
5) Suggest additional meetings or conversations if more clarification is needed Note: 2-3 above are prompted for when using email or the Memo format in Word. We can help explain how we can use Outlook to organize Tasks and schedule meetings.
Example: please provide a copy of THIS Memo to each of your supervisors, and ask them to adopt this form of communication, this week. Thank you.
Re:Sounds interesting (Score:3, Funny)
-5 for spelling it is Delbert
Seriously... aside from the other obvious error of Memo's, it's actually a good piece.
Don't forget to CC their boss.... (Score:5, Interesting)
All it does is PISS THEIR BOSS OFF.
And that's only the start of the problem. I have just been involved in a project where a minor issue that could have been resolved between two developers was blown up out of all proportion and resulted in a "crisis meeting" - all because of a reckless CC.
Re:Don't forget to CC their boss.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily - it depends on the Boss and on the frequency with which the cc: weapon is deployed.
Used sparingly, it can get results. Used all the time, any Boss will glaze over and ignore.
The best place for CC: is in paper documentation - that way, your intended victim BELIEVES that the Boss is getting a copy. But you don't bother to actually send the hard copy to the boss. I recently used this when I wrote the Customer Service Manager of a recalcitrant Telco. I put CC: CEO and showed that I had the CEO's email address on a paper letter. I had FOUR phone calls from senior Telco staff addressing (and, Hurrah!) solving my problem the same day.
Re:Don't forget to CC their boss.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really insulting to me and my team, because the implication is "Tricia has to be nudged to make this happen."
I sent an email saying specifically "I don't need to be cc:'d on every email about the project. If there is a problem with the project, I'm sure Tricia will tell me about it. If you feel that something is not being done to your satisfaction, please let me know directly and I'll take care of the situation."
I haven't had a CYA cc: since.
Re:Don't forget to CC their boss.... (Score:5, Funny)
This works great when someone does something like the above and is either completely wrong about something, knows not what they are talking about, etc...
The BOFH in me loves to be able to reply back with "This data is showing up wrong on the web because it is in the database wrong. I did some further tracking and found that the incorrect data is in this record that you entered on such-and-such date."
Usually stops the random cc's for a little bit.
Thanks for the Article (Score:2, Redundant)
This is way WAY overdone. (Score:5, Insightful)
> interrupt what you're doing. Essentially they pick the moments at
> which you pay attention.
As opposed to a face-to-face conversation, where you blankly stare through someone or choose to ignore them? Or a phone call is supposed to be better in some way. "Ah, yes! You can ignore a phone call!" Yes, and you can ignore your email for periods as it stacks in.
I think having emails stream in on a regular basis is only a problem if you're obsessive compulsive about reading each and every one as they happen. Otherwise, it really isn't a problem anywhere near the author suggests. We can leave our email client running AND pick the moments we receive our mail.
I think one of the main reasons I like email is for a reason you give... it is a public and pemanent record. Although not necessarily true, I have to say, I like emails so that I can document things and refer back to them later when I need to. Super handy.
I'm sure I'd find more to disagree with in the article if it ever finishes loading.
I'll stick with email. (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, I'm not exactly a friendly person. Other people are fine in concept, provided I am permitted to observe them from a distance, but I don't like having too much face-to-face contact with them. Email lets me maintain some degree of solitude at work, which preserves my overall level of happiness.
email (like anything) can go both ways (Score:4, Interesting)
He's been since shit-canned, but it was still endlessly annoying to find out about a problem later than it was reported.
However, with our clients, email is the only way I want to handle everything. It provides a written audit trail of everything that happens, and it's come in handy many times.
One client in particular is becoming infamous around here for talking to techies like me on the phone, saying "oh there's nothing wrong, everything is going fine, just a couple really minor issues", and as soon as the phone is hung up, she's talking to the tech director pulling a chicken little act and telling him that the sky is falling and us lazy computer nerds arent saving the day. Luckily he's not enough of a pointy-haired boss to realize she's full of shit.
So, when she calls, I say "put every issue you have in an email". She has no room to lie and tell the boss she reported problem X or Y.
Mirror list (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is a mirror list [man.ac.uk]
Re:Mirror list (Score:3, Funny)
Praise almighty email! (Score:3, Interesting)
And when you're working in IT, where your manager is probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown half the day, email is a lifesaver. I know that my boss preferred getting emails to having people walk into his office for everything. Sure, urgent matters are a different issue. But at least he could reply to important emails quickly and the rest of the email after the working day was done and not be interrupted in the middle of whatever he was doing earlier.
But, there's also laziness. I can't think of how many times my college roommates and I used to IM each other when we were all within shouting distance of each other.
Improperly utilized... (Score:5, Insightful)
I find the article itself to be mostly annoying. Anyone who allows their work to be degraded as a result of email has a performance problem, and blaming email, meetings, phone conversations, etc, for that performance problem is just avoiding the real problem.
Having said that, I'm going to vent about a wildly annoying email situation that I run into frequently.
I write a lot of proposals and plan deployment projects. I usually have technical questions regarding some specific aspects of deployments that I work on. I've found that I often have many questions, most of which are fairly verbose, and that won't be answered with one-word answers.
Normally, I bundle all these questions up in an email, put a summary at the beginning and a nice synopsis at the end, and send it off. About 50% of the time I get a good response back with verbose answers (usually these things are going to pre-sales technical support at software and hardware manufacturers), but about the other 50% of the time I get:
This is too technical to discuss in email, please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.
PLEASE CALL ME?!? WTF? This is too technical? Perhaps they should answer more like: "I am far, far too stupid to respond to this in writing. My writing skills suck, and I don't communicate well but can at least manage to pull it off in a verbal conversation. Please call." Or maybe, "We are dishonest and will be lying to you about our product. We don't want you to have our lies documented. Please call." And then there's also: "I look busier to my boss when I talk on the phone. If I just send you an email, I won't look busy. Please call." Yeesh.
There appears to be a strong lack of appreciation for the benefits of email, including the "read and respond" anytime nature, the clarity of good writing (especially on technical topics), the historical reference value, and the easy searchability and recall. Somehow these fucking idiots labor under the assumption that a verbal conversation with them is going to somehow be of more use to me than a documented, searchable, archivable email message. They also labor under the assumption that talking to their fucking voicemail or playing phone-tag with them is something that I want to and have time to do.
Frankly, this article looks like the musings of somebody with poor time management skills and who is looking for something/someone to blame for it.
Re:Improperly utilized... (Score:3, Insightful)
PLEASE CALL ME?!? WTF? This is too technical? Perhaps they should answer more like: "I am far, far too stupid to respond to this in writing. My writing skills suck, and I don't communicate well but can at least manage to pull it off in a verbal conversation. Please call."
I'm going to strongly disagree with you here, but I suspect that my perspective/background on this has more to do with it. E-mail has a place in the communications "toolbox", but I have frequently come across situations where it can be a right major pain in the ass. Almost all of these situations have come because someone is too lazy to come and see me face-to-face when I could have explained a concept to them in 5 minutes by drawing some diagrams - something I could never have done in 100 emails. And, most of these cases are highly technical, something I don't think email is particularly suited to. Of course, my "technical" may differ to yours.
I'll be more specific - I did some amount of teaching (university) in mechanical engineering (all years). Ironically, one fo the things I taught was communication in engineering! It was quite frequent to get a student email me with a question about a lab, assignment, tutorial, etc. Often the explanations for this could be done in 5 minutes face-to-face where I could draw a graph/diagram, write out a long equation (something email is crap for - try writing out the equations for elastohydrodynamic lubrication in any kind of electronic format) and get the concept across. This would take 5 minutes of my time (and the student's time), whereas composing an email would take 30+.
I also frequently get aksed my opinion (and ask opinions of others) on a problem that someone may be having with a (for example) problem with their numerical model. A 15 minute conversation can go through a whole host of problems, thoughts and (possible) answers; email would have taken 3+ hours and at least 15 replies, wasting both our time.
Another situation where I think email has no place is for design brain-storming - you simply can't keep up with everyone's ideas and modifications and scratchings (drawings) over email. I'm talking about the kind of design brain storming you might do to solve a problem in mechanical engineering.
Or maybe, "We are dishonest and will be lying to you about our product. We don't want you to have our lies documented. Please call."
Sadly, the fact that the responses to this posting (the parent, not yours specifically) largely talk about blame and having to put things in writing, is a sad statement on the way society is headed - the I-can-get-some-money-so-I'm-gonna-sue mentality.
Don't get me wrong - email has a place if used properly (I can instantly email results to someone so that when I come and talk to them tomorrow they have already seen them and will have more idea what I'm talking about, for example), but I think that many people underestimate the value of face-to-face communication and the humble paper-and-pen. Of course, this assumes that travel time is not a problem.
Additional Tyranny (Score:5, Insightful)
I've received E-mails which, on the surface, was sent just to me, only to have been BBC'd to my superiors. This is especially frustrating/embarassing when E-mail which I replied to is quoted and sent to and individual, who then reply to me with BBCs, so that my previous conversation goes out to parts unknown and is privied to who knows what, and I may have no clue who else is 'listening in'.
I consider the use of BCCs to be sneaky and cowardly, but also as a part of the office culture, so yeah, those E_mails have a life unto their own that you might not know.
Re:Additional Tyranny (Score:4, Funny)
You mean like this [guardian.co.uk]? Nope - my bad - that was to the Observer not the BBC...
The Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really easy: Position everyone from CEO in his corner office through cube dweller to mail clerk on his mailbench so that their computer monitors -- what they are currently "working on" -- is viewable by anyone walking casually nearby. Give 'em all big 25" monitors as well.
Anticipated increase: 35%
At the end of each month, have IT run and post a report with every employee's name and the amount of time he spent parked on what particular web sites.
Anticipated Increase: 60%
E-mail, schmee-mail. You want to increase productivity, you restrict web access. Many, many office workers today do not even NEED Web access of ANY kind while on the job. Give these guys an e-mail reading client with word processor capabilitiy. Add a spreadsheet for the Accountants.
Anticipated Increase: 75%
Happy to Help!
Re:The Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the management was strictly anti-cubicle, so instead of having a cubicle wall on either side of the monitor, they put the right angles together and put the computers on the inside corners of this little construction. I got to face my fellow employees on either sides. Every bloody hour of the day.
You have no idea how distracting this can be. Especially when one of them keeps a different schedule, so while you're deep in code, they're programming. Or taking company time to talk to their signifigant other on MSN, and laughing at their replies. And the other scowls, and yells to people behind him without turning his head. And the one across from you, behind yours and his monitor, which you can see over both of, bobs his head to his music that he's listening to on headphones.
I have no doubt that I posed as much of a distraction to them as they did to me. (If not moreso.) 'Cause I had action figures...
Re:The Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I see this as lowing productivity. However productivity-leeching playing around is, what's even worse is the "hey, what's that you're doing" syndrome that happens all the time when your stuff is visible to everyone else.
Also bad is the "hey, why aren't you working on my project?" syndrome. Closely related to the also-problematic "I walked by and he wasn't working on your problem" syndrome. When someone doesn't know what you're working on, they at least have to ask you or come into your workspace, requiring more effort and also allowing you to say your peace.
Not much worse than having to convince people 5-10 times a day that what you're working on is necessary (especially if what you're working on is indirectly needed to work on what they want you to work on).
Another big problem is when you're checking out help sites or online documentation sites, or looking for a special program, and it looks like play to other people (many sites don't look all that professional, and on top of that many people are innately suspicious that others do not do near the amount of work they do).
However distracting websites can be, people can harm productivity much worse.
This could be a good idea. You have to watch out for what sort of political climate it can foster, though.
On a side note, there is a plugin for the jabberd Jabber server that collects statistics about who uses Jabber, how much, and to whom they speak and optionally posts the info on a web page. Similar theory.
Enh. Often times this does more harm than good. First off, this can be solved by your previous suggestion of posting who spends time at what sites (social pressure with a technological implementation). If you remove web access, people are just as likely to spend a bunch of time at the water cooler or wandering around, and there is no way to track that without serious effort on the part of management or a crippling rat-on-your-neighbor support policy.
People are going to "take breaks." and some people are better about their time than others. I've met people who can stay on AIM all day and still get a lot of work done. I've met many more sysadmins and programmers who can hang out on IRC all day and still get a lot of work done. I've met still more secretaries who can leave their email app open all the time and still get a shocking amount of work done (there are some really good secretaries/personal assistants out there, though there are quite a few useless ones as well).
In short, removing distractions doesn't help all that much unless it is followed up by enforcement of work habits. That's not all that efficient when you could've just enforced the work habits to begin with, and even that is not all that effective when compared to a system where if you don't get your work done, you get fired.
(note: there are many variances on this system. Quality circles to peer mentoring. I'm talking about a system, not an implementation of the "no work, get fired" policy)
Re:The Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Score:5, Insightful)
Employee morale is an important component of office productivity.
How high do you think morale is going to be once you install the closed-circuit cameras to spy on them all day and replace their powerful web-enabled computers with Brother P-Touch label makers???
Re:The Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a LOT more to running a successful business than how much "work" gets done. In a real business you have to worry about morale, relationships, burnout, and of course employee retention. A good company is the one that realizes that you rate the employees not on the percent of time they're at their desks, but on how they complete their projects. If reading slashdot twice a day gives me a slight release, it'll make me a happier and more productive employee. But if I'm forced to look at code all day and have nothing else to take a break with, my brain would melt and I'd be useless.
Travis
Email vs what? (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact is that for some people, being contactable is absolutely essensial throughout the working day. Personally, I find myself constantly being asked technical questions about a very wide range of subjects as well as having my own work to do. I have to have give answers at some point or others get no work done. If people want to know how to contact me, I have to tell them something!
By default the majority just pick up the phone and call me. This is an absolute disaster when I am in the middle of debugging some complex problem.
Most of the time now when someone phones with a technical question I ask them if they can send me an email about it. After hearing this several times they usually get the message and stop calling at all in favour of sending emails. This has improved my ability to work no end. I now check and answer emails in batches whenever I have a convenient breaking point.
Email has substantially reduced breaks in my concentration. Exactly the opposite of what the author finds.
Re:Email vs what? (Score:4, Insightful)
This creates the same sort of problem the author describes where incoming email interrupts work flow. I think the solution here is the same: Don't answer the phone. I keep my email client up all the time but that doesn't mean I have an obligation to jump over and answer an email whenever it arrives. I tab over to the email client every once in a while to see if something has arrived. The same applies to the phone. If I'm in the middle of something the ring becomes a request for my attention, not a demand.
Re:Email vs what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ignorability of e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been lately searching for a job... at first online exclusively via sites like monster.com & craigslist.org-- I sent and sent and sent and resumes and letters, only didn't get any replies for months. Eventually I got discouraged and decided to try one of those job fairs, though I thought I was being blown off (thanks, nothing at this time we'll call you if anything...) I got immediate results.
I think I can attribute this to several things inherent with e-mail:
1) Effort
Sending out an e-mail can take very little time or commitment, so deleting one follows suit. Spam has trained us well.
2) Quantity
Any online correspondence of this nature will attract many more applicants than other methods. While this seems good for employers, it devalues each application further. Not absolutely perfect experience? *delete* This method is unfortunate because often there is a lot more to being able to fit into a working environment than prior history. Sure you know your field, but what good is an employee that's so annoying they can't work in teams with co-workers? That's the sort of thing you can only discern in person.
3) the Human Element
When you meet someone face to face there is a lot more sway in the interaction, you give a real physical person more respect and empathy than you do a page of text. Just look at some of the troll posts you are all familiar with for proof of this phenomenon. I highly doubt Anonymous Cowards ever insult or smack people down IRL as I have seen them do on message boards.
4) the Squeaky Wheel
When you have the benefits of #3 you have a lot more slack given to you, and it is much easier to retain a presence when you correspond via phone or in person simply because you cannot be ignored until convenient.
Low Impact Waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Did everyone have face to face conversations, relationships were built, understanding blossomed, conflicts avoided, before email came along and sentenced us to digital solitary confinement?
No.
People wrote memos. Know what "cc" means on the email you send? Carbon Copy, from the old typewriter and carbon paper days. Memos were typed by secretaries (who inevitably had stained hands from the carbon paper), and sent via interoffice mail to the recipient, or slipped onto chairs or under doors late at night if particularly conflict laden.
Discussions were drawn out over weeks instead of hours, with each memo salvo taking a day or two.
Email doesn't allow us to avoid our co-workers - trust me, that that invented long before digital anything. It just gives us a lower environmental impact way of doing it.
Does email provide us with interruption time shifting, as the article suggests? Yes, but so does going through one's paper "in-bin".
Nothing new, just faster, more efficient, lower cost, lower impact time wasting.
Depends on what the email is (duh!) (Score:5, Insightful)
It creates a paper trail so we can later go back and follow the thought processes that led to either the award winning design that saved the world, or the "oops" that irradiated Canada.
If this struck a chord... (Score:3, Informative)
Now, if only I could keep from checking slashdot every hour, I would be all set!
Wearing headphones doesn't help! (Score:3, Interesting)
The test: two groups of programmers are given a convoluted mathematical problem and are tasked to write a program that solves it. One group works in silence. The other gets tunes to listen to.
The trick: the problem is actually an identity function; the output is just the input.
The results:Nearly everyone wrote a working program. But more people in the silence group discovered it was an identity function and came threw with a one-liner.
Conclusion? Apparently some part of your brain is active when you've got background music on, and is otherwise unavailable for those creative insights, bouts of genius, or other epiphanies. If you work in a cube, it's time to revolt!
Something I've... noticed (Score:5, Funny)
What does that symbol even mean anymore? Like if one period means pause three periods must be really dramatic!
Really, it's like "Man I don't know if a comma goes here, this elipse will fool everyone! I'm brilliant!" I'm not a grammar nazi or anything, I just hate reading IM/e-mails from people that do this. Even the damn article has some ellipses in it.
So if you're one of those people who does this, please stop. For...the love... of god.
Re:Something I've... noticed (Score:3, Funny)
I thought it meant that you were quoting William Shatner.
What is the point of this? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see a point to this article at all. Leaving my email client open lets people decide when they want to talk to me? Huh?
Turn your email client off? Are you kidding? Doesn't this guy realize that not all of us can use mutt or kmail or whatever at work, we're forced to use Outlook, which takes eons to startup, and even longer - oddly enough - to shut off (a feat only MS programmers could accomplish I think).
Nothing, I mean nothing breaks one's concentration like a fucking constantly ringing telephone, and having to log into voice mail and constantly check the messages that were left while you were talking on the phone. Or what about when you're trying to talk to someone about something important, but they're on the goddamn phone yapping and won't get off, because it lets them feel superior to you to make you wait to talk, and the phone is always more important than a face to face conversation. Telephones are the problem, I would gladly work without them at all.
Bad communication is the problem, not e-mail (Score:4, Interesting)
IMHO, e-mail is a great way to communicate information
- when no immediate response (if any) is required
- when you need to give multiple people the same information
- to keep a record/reminder of the information (such as when warning about an impending event, like scheduled downtime, etc.)
Unfortunately, in my experience, people rarely consider which is the best way to communicate. As a result, the wrong medium often is used.Case in point: people where I work have not developed good communication patterns. A lot of information is passed face-to-face, one person at a time. As a result,
- I frequently am interrupted while trying to program to be told something that is not urgent and requires no response or action on my part
- different people get told different things, so rarely do people have the same information, and no one knows what the other people know
- often, some people never get the information at all
- a lot more time is wasted dealing with the consequences when a 1-minute e-mail could have saved a lot of bother
- when I do send e-mail to my colleagues, it often is filtered into a folder and ignored/forgotten; often this results in me having to have a F2F conversation with someone to repeat the information anyway
Similarly, in other places I've worked, meetings were wasted passing on information that could have been better served with e-mail, while critical information that should have been discussed in meetings wasn't.Anyway, I think it just boils down to that old adage: the right tool for the job.
Urgency is in the eye of the beholder (Score:5, Insightful)
The interruptions are the problem. Whether these are phone calls or E-mail-notifications or people visiting.
Or when people call on the phone because they want to know if I have received their E-mails...
The problem seems to be that a lot of people think E-mails are something that is always to be replied to immediately, as if they were phone calls. I do not know why this is; ordinary paper-mail is certainly asynchronous, and any kind of written letter (paper or electronic) requires about the same amount of thought anyways.
Time and time again, I tell them: I will read the E-mail and answer it when it is convenient to do so. Most of the time this seems to be grudgingly accepted; the exceptions are when the mail is about some bad system bug that demands immediate attention. And some people never seem to be able to understand why they have to wait more than 10 minutes for a reply. Must be their jobs that have all this urgency; well, I've got deadlines as well so we will have to live with it! Besides, I have to think of an answer.
Otherwise, while in bug-fixing mode, phone, E-mails, and face-to-face meetings have all their good and bad points. Phone conversations are great for getting error information from the user, most of them can read off a dialog box, and I can tell them to click this and that and immediate evaluate responses. When it comes to correcting them by having to edit some configuration data however, phone is terrible. Imagine trying to dictate URLs or code full of important punctuation-marks and hope to get it right ...
And here is exactly where E-mail excels. I can type up the correct texts in the mail itself or in an attached file, and tell the recipients exactly where to put them for things to start working again. But doing the active troubleshooting (in the style of "try this ... hmm ... try that ... nope, how about you do this and then try ... ah! it crashed. OK can you read me the stack-trace... ") over E-mail is slow and cumbersome.
E-mail also has the great advantage of persisting after the fact. I do not intend to, nor manage, to remember every little detail talked about on the phone, neither do the people at the other end of the line. Instead, when an E-mail from last month is lying around, this makes it easier to pick up the thread where we left it.
Face-to-face meetings are most useful when evaluating features, testing, or simply for "showing the flag" to the customers. Makes them feel appreciated, and we all know what an asset satisfied customers are.
Pavlov gone bad... (Score:5, Funny)
I've gotten into the bad habit of emailing with co-workers to arrange lunch gatherings...
Now, unfortunately, every time time that little new email chime rings on my computer, I begin to drool uncontrollably!
Tyranny of Email? (Score:5, Insightful)
E-mail is only as annoying as you let it be. Unlike direct communication you do have that choice to make.
E-mail has two main advantages as a communication medium, audit and asyncronisity(sp?).
Audit-- a record of the transaction and it's contents-- can be very helpful for the inevitable CYA, and the best reason not to insult someone over e-mail.
The author's main point of omnipresence is, as stated before, completely an 8th layer issue.
I also disagree with part of the no technical discussions over e-mail. I find that sending config files, commands, firewall rules, router configs, or any number of other syntacicly(sp?) precise things best over e-mail, rather than over the phone.
If I had Meta-Administratator Moderation points I might label the artical a bit Trollish-- Gotta go, I have new mail.
Avoiding Tyranny (Score:4, Insightful)
Long before people snagged e-mail as a way to pass work around we had bulletin board systems. I worked as a roundtable sysop for GEnie for six years managing BBS's. We had 14 people on our staff to handle two multi-player game RT areas with over 100 category areas with 20 to 40 discussion topics in each area.
I was hired, trained, and assigned all my work via BBS and e-mail. In all six years I had two phone conversations regarding editing of some 1,000-line script files we used to help people sign up for categories. It worked well because we all worked together to minimize static in the environment.
As with anything, you must be 10% smarter than the technolgy involved to avoid becoming its slave. E-mail can be as addictive as heroin, tobacco or alcohol if you loose your basic understanding of what it is and how it can affect you.
It also helps to have a social contract between the users, which if they don't understand what e-mail is good for in the first place won't happen.
Thus we're constantly being spammed, not just by advertisers and scammers, but by our well-meaning co-workers, friends and neighbors who are just being helplessly carried along by the wave.
Text messaging on phones is starting to go the same way. It's "cool," but by encouraging its use without an understanding of why it's useful, maybe it's just a way for the cellular companies to sell you more minutes on your plan.
(Japanese kids using it on trains where it's too noisy to talk is a reason. Using it to repreatedly spam your friends with trivial mini-thoughts is a way to eat air time.)
'Nuff said.
articel is just another rant (Score:5, Insightful)
So let's get to the details. First, if you are obsessively using your email client, then of course you need to turn it off. Like any addiction, if you can't handle it, you shouldn't use it. I would say it reasonable for many people to turn off the signals when a new message arrives. The same goes for what is in an email. Observe professional behavior. If you do not know what professional behavior is, go find out.
I want to talk about meeting versus email for a minute. The reason we don't have meeting is because they are expensive. You put five engineers and a supervisor in a room for an hour, you are not only paying their salaries, but also incurring opportunity costs. Take into account that the meeting will only get 45 minutes of work done, and everyone will take 10 minutes to get to and from the meeting, it becomes a very inefficient proposition. The nice thing about meeting is that if the discussion if getting bogged down in technical trivia, which it often does, the facilitator can bring everyone back on task. We email, this may not happen. However, staying on task and knowing when to let go of technical details is a skill we should all learn, and a skill companies should teach. With those skills, employees will watch themselves. Emails are very efficient way to work out problems that do not need the expense of a physical meeting.
Clearly the most ludicrous rule is the three hour rule. I don't know about other people out there, but for me it varies wildly. There are days when any interruption is a nuisances. There are days when I can be interrupted every half hour and it makes not difference. However, in either of these cases, the email is the most desirable interruption as it provides the minimal level of distraction. In any case, isolating one self is bad, especially when we work in a marketplace of ideas. Communication is the method we use to formulate, revise, and check ideas. A culture of isolationism just engenders an environment in which bad ideas can be allowed to flourish.
A person must be self aware about what they must do to do good work. Companies and coworkers must acknowledge those differences, within the framework of minimum productivity and company needs, to get the best work out of everyone. If a person needs to chill and walk around every hour, that should be fine. If a person needs to be alone for a few hours, that should be fine. OTOH, if a person does not know how to rationally deal with their email client, or get visibly upset if interrupted during their 'three hour window' when the interruption is perfectly justified, or is not forgiving that sometimes non essential email is sent, I would wonder if the company might need to send that person for counseling.
I love e-mail (Score:4, Insightful)
I always wanted to be that amateur brain corresponding with other brains through long letters. I admired Churchill and Ghandi who wrote each other letters like that, many of which are published and now remnants of a time when people cared about the flow of words.
When I was young, I wished I had pen pals, but my handwriting sucked.. I'm impatient and have shaky hands. Plus it's tedious, expensive, and insecure.
Go e-mail! People who abuse e-mail probably abuse other communication anyways. People who blame e-mail for the reduction of humanity are just excusing their own contribution to its demise.
Suicide is the true mark of an advanced civilization
- philipd
The word is email! (Score:4, Funny)
Fight the power! Use "email".
Email Phone (Score:4, Insightful)
You can check your email when you're done with what you're in the middle of.
You don't have to respond right away, you can find the correct and complete answer.
Reduced accent errors. Ever work in a place with people from India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Germany, England, US, Vietnam, and the Phillipines? Sometimes it's hard to tell what everyone is saying even though it's all in English.
It keeps a record. You don't need to remember exactly what the guy said, it's written down! Very handy for part numbers.
You know who you're dealing with. "Hey, this is Mike..." on the phone is replaced with something like "Mike Smith -mike.smith@company.com-". You're not dealing with Mike Jones.
Long, technical matters can be spelled out in detail. If a procedure on how to do something can be spelled out in words, it's more likely to be followed without errors than if it's orally passed over a half hour phone conversation.
Cool down period. If you're getting upset and starting to argue, you can pause, cool down, and take care of it with a cool head isntead of ending up in a verbal flamefest.
---
If you want something that breaks your concentration, it's not email, it's the phone and PA systems.
The Sad Part Is (Score:3, Insightful)
The First Couple Paragraphs (Score:3, Informative)
Email is one of the greatest things the computer revolution has done for personal productivity. Used improperly, it can alsohurt your productivity. This article discusses ways to use email effectively. Then it goes beyond that and talks about how to be productive, period.
I'm not going to list all the reasons email is good. You know them already, I assume you are an avid email user. (Anyone reading this is online, and just about anyone who goes online uses email.) I'm also not going to tell you email is evil, because it isn't.The negativeproductivity impact of email comes from the way you use it, not the medium itself.
There are two ways email impairs your productivity:
And avoid any "interesting" homepage (Score:3, Funny)
I have Slashdot as my homepage and find that I stand a very strong chance of being distracted every time I open a new browser window!
In fact, I'm supposed to be browsing our Javadoc to find the name of a function right now - but instead I got suckered by yet another slashdot headline...
Good old office email! (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been at my company over ten years, and had the same email account for about seven. No matter how many filters I put in, I get *shitloads* of spam every day. (Changing my email addy would be a nightmare because I get so many legit mails a day as well.) If I responded to emails immediately, as everyone else in the company has apparently been trained to, I would *never* get any work done. And since I'm in charge of my section, this could be a slight productivity problem. :)
Done (Score:5, Informative)
The Tyranny of Email
Saturday, 03/08/03 11:41 AM
In a hurry? Then please see the rules for avoiding email tyranny and the guidelines for being productive.
Email is one of the greatest things the computer revolution has done for personal productivity. Used improperly, it can also hurt your productivity. This article discusses ways to use email effectively. Then it goes beyond that and talks about how to be productive, period.
When Email Goes Bad
I'm not going to list all the reasons email is good. You know them already, I assume you are an avid email user. (Anyone reading this is online, and just about anyone who goes online uses email.) I'm also not going to tell you email is evil, because it isn't. The negative productivity impact of email comes from the way you use it, not the medium itself.
There are two ways email impairs your productivity:
1. It breaks your concentration.
2. It misleads you into inefficient problem solving.
Let's take the concentration impact first. I'm a software engineer, and programming requires extended periods of concentration. Actually this isn't unique to programming, a lot of fields require that you concentrate. (Probably just about everything worth doing requires some concentration!)
{
I maintain that programming cannot be done in less than three-hour windows. It takes three hours to spin up to speed, gather your concentration, shift into "right brain mode", and really focus on a problem. Effective programmers organize their day to have at least one three-hour window, and hopefully two or three. (This is why good programmers often work late at night. They don't get interrupted as much...)
}
One of the key attributes of email is that it queues messages. Unlike face-to-face conversation and 'phone calls, people can communicate via email without both paying attention at the same time. You pick the moments at which you pay attention to email. But many people leave their email client running continuously. This is the biggest baddest reason why email hurts your productivity. If you leave your email client running, it means anyone anytime can interrupt what you're doing. Essentially they pick the moments at which you pay attention. (Even some random spammer who is sending you a crappy ad for a get-rich scheme.) This is bad.
There are three stages to this badness. Stage one is configuring your email client to present alerts when you receive an email. Don't do this. Stage two is configuring your email client to make noise when you receive an email. Don't do this. Stage three is running your email client all the time. Don't do this, either. To be effective, you must pick the moments at which you're going to receive email. I know this goes against common wisdom. Just about everyone I know runs their client all the time, has it configured to make noise, and may even have it present alerts when an email is received. Don't do it.
Spam is the best kind of email to get, because you look at it quickly, see that it's spam, and delete it. Then you get back to work. Personal email is the second best kind of email to get, because you either respond quickly ("Hi Jane, great hearing from you. See you at the club tonight.") or set it aside for later. Task-oriented work email is the worst kind of email to get. It often requires thought, and because it is work there is some immediacy to it. But as soon as you take the time to respond, you've interrupted yourself. You've shifted back to "left brain mode", and you've lost the thread of your concentration.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't respond to emails promptly. Check email whenever you're interrupted anyway - before you start work, after a meeting, after lunch, before you go home, etc. Set aside time to do this. Just don't let others dictate the timing.
Has this ever happened to you?
[ In the hallway at work... ]
O: "Hi R, how's it going?"
R: "Great, how are you?"
O: "Good. Hey, did you see my email about the framitz?"
R: "No, I haven't checked my email yet today, sorry."
O: "WHAT!"
It has happened to me. Sometimes I can't believe it - I sent the email at 9:30, and here it is 11:30, and they haven't checked their email? What are they doing? They're being efficient, that's what. They're picking their moment to be interrupted, and that's a good thing. We'll revisit this theme again below in the Three Hour Rule. For now, here's the takeaway:
* Turn your email client off. You should pick the moment at which you'll be interrupted.
Okay, now let's look at the second productivity-sapping attribute of email, that it misleads you into inefficient problem solving. Email is a communication medium. You send messages to others, you receive messages from others. Some of these messages are mere data transmission - FYIs so you know what's going on. Some are "noise" - 'thank you's, 'I got it's, jokes, etc. And some - many - are problem solving. You hear about a problem, and you respond with a possible solution, or a possible approach, or more questions. Nothing wrong so far - email is a good medium for problem solving. And it is so easy - you get an email, you think (sometimes), and you respond. Poof, you're done.
Except when you're not. Because there are some kinds of problems which don't get solved in email, ever. And as soon as you have that kind of problem, you have to stop, immediately, before you make the problem worse.
First, never, ever, criticize someone in email. For reasons which I have never fully grasped, any negative emotion is always amplified by communication through email. Sometimes you intend to be critical - someone has done something dumb, or said something silly, or emailed something ridiculous. Resist the urge to reply. Sometimes you don't mean to be critical - you're just making an observation, or engaging in technical debate, or adding facts to a discussion. But as soon as you sense that the recipient has taken your email as criticism, you must immediately switch media - a face-to-face meeting is best, but a 'phone call is also okay.
Second, don't get into prolonged technical debates in email. I've seen threads lasting weeks with a whole series of kibitzers, with everyone restating their points of view and nothing getting settled. Often email has the effect of polarizing the debate, and the combatants end up further apart in their views then when the debate began. As soon as you sense this happening, you must immediately switch media. A meeting with the core people involved in best, but a conference call is also okay.
Both of these kinds of problems which don't get solved in email are exacerbated by copying others. The bigger the audience, the worse things get. As bad as it is to be critical in email, it is far worse if ten colleagues are copied. Often the presence of an email audience is what makes for the polarization of technical debates - if the core people were the only ones involved, they would be less virulent and more willing to acknowledge other points of view and seek compromise. Okay, so here's the takeaway:
* Never criticize anyone in email, and avoid technical debates. Use face-to-face meetings or 'phone calls instead.
Before I go on to talking about productivity in general, let me share some other thoughts about email. First, be judicious in who you send email to, and who you copy on emails. Every email recipient is going to lose a little time reading each email you send. Simple emails which say "thanks" or "got it" or "see you at the meeting" are polite and part of normal human communication. But there is a limit, no need to reply "you're welcome", or "glad you got it", or "great, I'll see you, too". In my career I've run large teams, and sometimes people in those teams copied me on virtually every email they sent. Maybe they wanted me to know what was going on, or maybe they were letting me know what a great job they were doing. Either way, they were taking my time with stuff I didn't need to spend time on. I have a high capacity for skimming email, but there is always the feeling that they didn't get it; like "why did they copy me on this?" There should be a purpose to every addressee on each email. It is okay to drop recipients from a reply - in fact, it is good; less people are involved, and [to reiterate the point] the bigger the audience, the more any implied criticism or debate will be exacerbated.
{
I have to digress for a pet peeve. I send an email to S, and S replies, copying eight other people. I reply back to S alone. S replies, again copying eight other people. This is bad. If I'm smart I will abandon email and continue the conversation with S face-to-face or over the 'phone. If I'm not smart I'll flame S so badly his hair catches fire, copying everyone, and regret it later.
}
Second, email is a very relaxed medium, but observing some formality is important. Use an email client which spell checks. Use normal capitalization. Use correct grammar - complete sentences make email easier to read just like everything else. Don't use weird background colors and strange fonts. Don't append pictures of your dog. You get the picture... I've received emails from senior people which bordered on illiterate, with incorrect capitalization, grammar, incomplete sentences, etc. The impression is not positive.
Third, email can be immediate, but don't hesitate to review and revise important emails. In many companies email has all but replaced paper memos. In many business situations email has replaced letters. When writing an email which has a wide distribution, or which affects a negotiation, or possible deal, or potential sale, take the time to write a draft, and reread it later. You can almost always improve the wording, make a point more concisely, or other otherwise improve the communication.
Finally, remember that email is a public and permanent record. Email is plain text and goes out over public networks, and is often stored on servers for a long time and may be backed up for a longer time. It might feel "throwaway" at the time, but it will not be thrown away, as senior executives at Microsoft, Enron, Worldcom, and others have discovered. If you have something to say which won't bear the public light of day, it shouldn't be said in email. And if you are sending something confidential or sensitive, consider sending it as an encrypted and/or password-protected attachment.
Okay, enough about email. Here's the six rules for avoiding email tyranny:
1. Turn your email client off. Pick the moment at which you'll be interrupted.
2. Never criticize anyone in email, and avoid technical debates. Use face-to-face meetings or 'phone calls instead.
3. Be judicious in who you send email to, and who you copy on emails.
4. Observing some formality is important.
5. Don't hesitate to review and revise important emails.
6. Remember that email is a public and permanent record.
Got it? Cool. Thinking about email productivity led me to make some comments about productivity in general...
The Three Hour Rule
Programming is a right-brain activity. It is very conceptual and spatial and [gasp!] artistic. Effective programming requires that you transition from your body's normal "left brain" mode into a "right brain" zone. As I mentioned above, programming cannot be done in less than three-hour windows. Really. And in talking to friends in other fields, I'm convinced this applies to many other lines of work.
When you're in a three-hour zone, you've spun up to speed, gathered your concentration, shifted into "right brain mode", and are focusing on a problem. You're being productive. There are four things which can interrupt you, and you have to watch out for all of them:
1. Receiving email or 'phone calls.
2. Personal contact with colleagues.
3. Meetings.
4. Warp-offs.
Let's talk about each of these... First, emails or 'phone calls. Email we've talked about, this one is easy - just turn your email client off. Done. Most people receive far less 'phone calls than emails, so calls aren't nearly as much of a problem. The solution is the same - put your phone in "do not disturb" mode. Nowadays most everyone has a cell 'phone, leave that on, and if there is a genuine emergency your significant other or doctor or whomever will reach you there. Most calls to your desk are colleagues or customers; these are important, but as with email, you should pick the time to take them.
Second, there is personal contact with colleagues. Most companies these days can't afford for everyone to have a private office, so it is pretty easy to get interrupted. (If you have an office, close the door!) Distractions include ambient noise, questions ("Hey, do you know how to invoke a framitz?"), and other interruptions ("Hey, you want to play foosball?"). These are really important (especially foosball), but they are interruptions, and they will mess up your three-hour window. Basically you want to isolate yourself from your colleagues, just like with email and 'phone calls. To deal with ambient noise, get yourself some really good headphones and play music. Cordless, if you want. For $100 you will have the best-sounding music you can imagine, and a sure-fire way to eliminate background noise.
{
The "office vs. cubicle" debate rages and has not been settled. Some companies give every engineer their own office, and claim the productivity improvement is worth the cost. Others feel the atmosphere is better in a cubicle farm, and the interaction between engineers leads to better problem solving. Without taking a stand in this debate, the fact is that most engineers work in cubicles, and have little control over this. So it is what it is - you have to make the best of it.
In 2000 I joined PayPal, a dot-com with an egalitarian work environment where everyone had a cubicle, even the CEO. After many years of enjoying a private office, I was back in a cube. I quickly found two things to be essential, first, I positioned my desk and computer so I was not distracted by traffic (away from the cube opening), and second, I bought a great pair of cordless headphones. With these adaptations I was able to work just as productively as I had in an office. (Of course I used conference rooms for meetings.)
}
Do Not DisturbDealing with questions and interruptions from colleagues is more difficult. The give-and-take between engineers in a team is important; often one person will have the answer to another's dilemma. There is also the social aspect, it is enjoyable to interact with your colleagues. However, you need to have those three-hour windows. I recommend a simple sign you can hang on your cube: "I'm in a zone", "Do not disturb", etc. (This is a chance to be creative...) Essentially you want your colleagues to know you're zoning. If they have a technical question which can wait, they can put it in email, or wait until you emerge. If they need immediate attention ("hey, you want to play foosball?") at least they know you were in a zone, and that they're interrupting you.
Third, meetings... Ah yes. An entire book can be written about meetings, and many have. Let me make a few comments about meetings and then leave it. Meetings interrupt everyone who attends, obviously, so they are "expensive". They are also often the best way to communicate team status and to problem-solve. So there is tremendous leverage in having good meetings instead of bad ones. Each meeting should have a well-defined purpose, and the organizer should keep the meeting on track. It is good to have meetings "first thing", bordering on lunch, or at the end of the day; this way people's three-hour windows are less affected. Enough about meetings... they are what they are.
Finally, warp-offs. So, what's a "warp-off"? Well, unlike the other three kinds of interruptions, in which other people interrupt you, a "warp-off" is when you interrupt yourself. Generally this happens because you're stuck - you don't know what to do next - so you switch tasks and do something you know how to do. My favorite warp-off is surfing the Internet. Sometimes when I'm working on a tough problem, I have to force myself not to do it. Other possible warps include: reading email (!), working on "fun" stuff instead of "hard" stuff, bugging your colleagues ("foosball, anyone?"), and of course posting to your 'blog
{
In re: working on "fun" stuff instead of "hard" stuff, it is interesting to think about what makes some tasks fun and others hard. I think happiness comes from liking yourself, and fun things are things which make you like yourself. Tasks which are fun are therefore tasks which you know how to do, and which demonstrate your proficiency. Tasks which are hard are tasks which you don't know how to do, or which reveal a lack of expertise. There is often feedback involved - fun tasks will gain you recognition from customers or coworkers, but hard tasks may not.
When you get stuck and find yourself doing something "fun" instead of something "hard", ask yourself what makes the hard thing hard? In a perfect world each person would always be assigned tasks which they're good at, and which gain them recognition, so that everything they do is fun. The world isn't perfect, but that's the goal.
}
Okay, that's a lot of words, let's see if we can summarize. There is essentially one big rule and four guidelines:
*
Big Rule: It takes three hours to get anything done.
*
Guidelines:
1. Turn off your email client, put your 'phone in "do not disturb".
2. Isolate yourself. Get good headphones. Warn colleagues when you're "in the zone", to minimize their interrupts.
3. Minimize meetings and schedule them to avoid three-hour windows.
4. Become self-aware about warping off and try to un-stuck yourself.
That's it - thanks for your attention. If you have comments about any of this, I'd love to hear them; please shoot me an email. Don't worry, it won't interrupt me
Re:Done (Score:2)
Re:Done (Score:5, Funny)
Heresy! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Done (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Done (Score:4, Insightful)
An adversity to email debates on technical merits is often based in all the wrong reasons: Giving "equal voice" to the technically less capable. Protecting ignorance. Protecting unfounded pride.
Re:Done (Score:4, Insightful)
I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, but, often, meeting dynamics start to encroach on such email exchanges, and the "Solve it now, we've wasted enough time!" rather than "solve it correctly" pressure this creates results in sub-optimal, short-term "solutions".
The "best" solution is the one that has the most support, in such situations, whether or not it is correct, robust, or scalable to future needs.
Of course, as we all know, the processor doesn't give a rat's ass how much support a "solution" has, but rather whether it is correct.
While email might be the perfect forum for long, complex, technical discussions, to solve difficult problems, with facts and avenues of research carefully preserved, articles like this one, and the "don't waste time on email" mentality they will engender in management as "the latest productivity thing", will derail such use of the medium. So, we are, once again, diverted to the "five minute fix" hell, that so makes meetings unproductive: if you can't make the quick fix work, you must be a bad programmer, no?
So, while I agree that email is an ideal medium for dealing with difficult problems, trying to use it for that purpose is likely going to invite sabbotage from those who do not understand the nuances of the problem, and what makes it difficult in the first place, as they get drawn into the discussion. This is espescially true as the design and programming vocabulary grows to accomodate maturation of the discipline: words like "generic", "refactor", "polymorphic", "singleton", "abstract", and "virtual" have very specific meanings in a modern design and OO programming context, and are ripe for misinterpretation by those who take them out of context: I've seen "generic" mistaken for "portable", "virtual" as pertaining to memory management (which it may or may not), and "abstract" misconstrued as "academic", with "polymorhic" and "refactor" raising fear of "too complicated" solutions.
There are simple problems and complex problems. And, complex problems do not have simple solutions, by definition. A growing trend in these days of "interchangable software engineers" is pressure to code to the level of understanding of the "least skilled programmer" to support this interchangability. The dynamics of large groups (and growing email audiences) increases these pressures. Sorry, but there is nothing that can make brain surgery a "cut by numbers" discipline, and there is nothing that can make complex problems simple.
So, while email may be perfect to let "hard core" problem-solvers collaborate, their efforts will be usurped, making it best to avoid the medium in favour of the classic midnight-programming sessions, when the hoi poloi have left to pursure their domestic lives, no doubt comfortably simple.
Re:IM mpx more than email (Score:3, Funny)
Far back in the mists of time, well about 1990 anyway, there was a talker called Cheeseplant's House [cheeseplant.org]. This got really popular for a while, and at my university [lancs.ac.uk] people would compulsively log on to it to talk. Eventually a user 'shouted' "Alright - this is silly. How many people here are just sitting in the Lab at Lancaster?".
The number of shame-faced heads that suddenly looked up and started glancing about was truly comical to see. And yes, I was one of 'em.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:A non issue me sez (Score:3, Funny)