Inspired, in no small part, by Luis Suarez’s “experiment” of getting away from email at work, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to change the way that I work in order to survive.
Reading Luis’ early blog entries I found myself saying “45 emails a day? I get that many emails over night! I WISH I could get to 45 emails a day.” I made all kinds of excuses for why I couldn’t do what Luis did (we have different jobs, different organizational cultures, different
BUT…Recently I’ve been paying closer attention to my own frustrations about how much email I receive and my objections and have realized that I’ve done this to myself. We’re not so different. (apart from my funny accent)
I already overcame my fears of removing the Microsoft Office Suite and relying only on Symphony and those fears proved to be completely unfounded…no reason this shouldn’t be the same.
So, after a year in my new IBM role (and getting more comfortable in my own skin) I’m recommitting myself to taking on the email battle.
Shameless product plug: Connections 2.5 is making this WAY easier for me.
For starters:
1) Newsletters: Gone…if they have a feed, I’ll subscribe in my feedreader. (Which, incidently, I have a widget for on my Connections Homepage)
2) Wikis: Moved away from “can you give me an update on this” to “can you please update the status here.” Pretty simple, but even today I probably had 4 requests for the same status and just sent them an IM with the link to the wiki page…that was already updated by my team.
3) Mass/Group communication: Moving to blog entries for team updates. There are still some items that are marked “cascade this to your team” that are formatted specifically for email, but that’s a battle for another day.
4) Integrated Voice into Sametime: This has been HUGE for me and a strangely very liberating way to communicate. IM has become the primary method of communication but using ST as my phone has added a whole new dimension. But this is for another post…suffice it to say, time saved, better communication, better attention on the task at hand.
6) Microblogging: Goodness…don’t know how I lived without it. I’m a huge fan of Twitter and the the addition of Microblogging in Connections 2.5 is very, very, very welcome.
So..that’s just for starters…
Filed under: Lotus Software, Work-Life
You are so right on!!!! IMHO, email makes you very unproductive and costly to your company. I love not having to answer the same question over and over again. I love how people can just get answers to their questions from me from my profile or other intellectual capital sources.
Though, every so often this guy from Canada comes to me with a question, but I guess that’s a battle for another day
How did that thing in Halifax go ?
Questions from “that guy in Canada?” Fair enough…sometimes my brain cramps. The “board” in Connections 2.5 will certainly help with that.
Halifax is going well! But we have even better news on Connections in Ontario!