Comments on: How to Declare Independence from Email

By: Irish Tom

Irish Tom — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:52:11 +0000

An interesting topic and certainly holds a challenge.
I have seperate email addresses for family and close friends and don’t use it except for that. I am also finding the constant repetition of “sales” emails are easy to handle as I just delete them. In my humble opinion, if you bombard me more than once a week, your gone!.
A friend of mine tried a little experiment last year and he recons it is working. He changes his email address every three months and sends an advisory to everyone on his list of his new email address. He says he looses about 30/40% of annoying emails each time he does it.
Anyway, hope Leo keeps us updated with his progress.
Cheers
Tom

By: Holly

Holly — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:21:13 +0000

Hi Bill. I agree about what you wrote and have had similar experiences with my emails and lack of managing skills. I am still trying to balance it all out and hopefully can catch up with them and improve at handling and automating some, while still being able to be personal and write back to many impt ones.

By: Bill Vlasak

Bill Vlasak — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 14:51:03 +0000

If all my received e-mail were nice and short maybe I could keep up ,but most are like sales pages.Excerpts,of blog entries,the way Holly does ,are enticement enough to read on.
With 18,000 e-mails gathering dust in my inboxes even just skimming to find certain senders and mass deleting others has become a nearly unmanageable daily chore.Naturally I miss some that I shouldn’t have deleted.Speed reading by inbox skimming has become disheartening, always looking for those special good news ones concerning site traffic and sales.Oh well,until that happens everything must remain as a time consuming hobby.Too bad ,though ,that I sometimes miss posts by certain favourite bloggers.
Concerning Twitter; with their 2000 follow limit I haven’t been able to follow anyone new until my followers list catches up to more than 2000..

By: Holly

Holly — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:18:06 +0000

Garry I really like the way you put your comment – and agree with looking for “ways to function at the top of our game in a way that we feel both graceful and liberated.” I think it can be tough for some people online to maintain a balance – with emails and other projects. If this works for him – great. I am curious to hear how it turns out and hope I can better balance my email/customer service with my life, family and work as well. It’s a daily thing.

By: Anna

Anna — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:52:25 +0000

I would not get rid of email but I work to continuously refine it and reduce the amount of time-drain without reducing the effectiveness.

For example, in the near future I will be creating a support forum as well as eventually a training program for my clients, because I realize I spend a lot of time answering questions in email, only to have the same or similar questions from the next client. It’s nothing new, the idea of using a forum to answer support questions so that one does not have to answer the same questions over and over. It is a simple matter of knowing when to start applying which tools … and refining from there.

Or even, setting something to handle a specific type of traffic. Once I have created the basic training program for my clients, I will not have to answer the same questions again such as – “how do I write a post” or “what is SEO?” I will just sign them up for my training program, which will not only save time, but save money as well.

I have also gotten more creative with filters and email configurations to consistently improve my email management system.

Like Joe, overseas clients is a definite issue for me. Email is great for that.

I also prefer Email to Skype and phone calls for many types of communications, because I don’t feel so “tied down” to potentially long conversations or specific appointments. I can start an email whenever I want, stop in the middle if I need to, come back to it, etc.

But that’s me. I think what you are doing sounds very smart as long as it works for you. For every person, the optimum solution will be different, depending on their own personal circumstances.

By: Garry

Garry — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:16:32 +0000

Interesting . . . I guess to me it all boils down to taking control of one’s life. We are not really doing justice to anyone if we are not looking for ways to function at the top of our game in a way that we feel both graceful and liberated.

When it comes to email, there is definitely a point when it becomes a personal drain, but for most I think it remains a vital link to our larger community.

I applaud him though and agree with Joe, it would be great to get a follow up on down the road.

GARRY

By: Klaus @ TechPatio

Klaus @ TechPatio — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:21:02 +0000

Now, that’s a dude with serious cojones!!

Leo, you have my 100% respect with that project I would never have thought it possible to do something like – and to be honest, I don’t really want to do it either.

I hope you will keep us updated on your progress, if you decide to skip it all and go back to being a slave of e-mail, or if your life has just become too great without e-mail

By: Normal Joe

Normal Joe — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:54:35 +0000

Interesting post. I’m all for forward thinking man and I’ll just say more power to ya! I don’t think there is a once size fits all solution for everyone, you’ve got to do what works best for you and your clients, customers, readers…whatever you call them.

For me, email remains an important part of communication, as I continue to move people to twitter, IM, and other forms of connecting.

But I also deal with a lot of people overseas, leaving them an email and then waking up to a response works well, as they also leave me emails during their “up time” and I get it when I wake up.

good stuff though man, and you made some valid points yo!