PragDave: Followup on the EMail Experiment

That's a great idea. Back in the 90's, hoping to cut down on my contact with work during vacation, I told people I would be "rafting in Utah." I had no idea that Utah was such a popular rafting destination--living as I did in Atlanta, it sounded just remote enough to make people think I was out of reach, even though I was in fact at home the whole time. It worked to eliminate attempts to contact me, but for the 20 years since then I have had to maintain the fiction that a) I am a white-water rafting enthusiast (I am not); and b) that I went to Utah in 1991 (I DID go there in 2003 on business, but no rafts were involved). In retrospect, just letting the phone ring or routing my email to the bit-bucket would have been a lot better.

Personally, I'm a bit freaked out about the negative reaction some people have to this. Everyone should be allowed some time off and that includes email. If you aren't ignoring work, then it isn't a real vacation.

That said, I would encourage a slightly different tone with an autoresponse email. Saying you will not even attempt to read the email is over the line in my book. Yes, skimming 5,000 emails will take time, but it isn't that difficult. Say something like:

* I'm going on vacation and will not see this email until I return on <date>

* I will make an effort to respond, but due to the volume of email I receive, it may take some time.

* Please resend your email with '[urgent]' after <date> if you would like me to respond faster.

What's so bad about that?

I hate to be cynical but it seems like doing this is just saying, "I am more important than the people who send me email, so I will place the burden of tracking my schedule on them." The other interpretation of this is that his email inbox is generally full of useless dreck that does not matter all that much to either him or the sender. Perhaps the success of this experiment says more about the kind of email he receives than it does about the general applicability of the experiment itself.

This is one of those things that's a novel idea when one person does it (particularly when that person still has a support staff available to field emails), but would be incredibly obnoxious if it were a common practice.

Thanks for the follow up.

Still, I wouldn't place such a rude "I don't care, it's deleted, mail me again when I'm back" autoresponder.

If I took this approach with my clients, they'd award me with a zero inbox count for perpeturity.

> And those rapid responses would in turn trigger another round of email, and another.

This reminds me of an effect of specials at a supermarket: it's not just that people will buy more, to stock up; nor that it becomes affordable to more people (price elasticity); nor that new people will try it - but that if you have more, you will use more. Like more roads create more traffic.

This is partly personal price elasticity, in that when something is cheaper, you can start using it in more ways - as a substitute for more expensive (or, if you have previously found substitutes for it, because it was too expensive; now you can stop substituting). But this is a change in behaviour which persists into the future (familiarity/habit), bumping up your consumption a notch.

A quick email response is like a special at a supermarket. It's so cheap, you use more. Not responding is like a price increase - sales drop off.

Interesting to see such a radical approach; it is surprising how much you can improve the S/N by simply taking a more aggressive stand on triage and accessibility.

By focusing my online presence on one IM and one email address (dropping in the process legacy emails and inadequate IMs; MSN, Yahoo, Skype...) and enforcing some sane triage on my clients/partners to ensure that they properly address requests (personal v. professional, urgent v. low priority), my daily volume of discussions has dropped significantly.

So I'm going to try this next summer. I've always wanted to, but never heard of anyone who actually went through with it.

I've also heard of someone setting up a script that automatically sent out a "I have not read you email since it arrived 2 weeks ago...if you need an answer reply to this email and I'll get back to you".

And it's not like people who actually have something important to tell me can't give me a phone call.

One problem may be that if someone sends you an e-mail and gets the responder, they may decide "Oh well I don't want them to worry about it then", except the e-mail was already sent.

Maybe auto responders should ask the senders to re-send the e-mail if they still need to send it?

Wouldn't it be more sensible to make a white list of people whose email you will read - relatives, important work people, etc.? That would minimize how much you piss off people you care about and probably still reduce your email volume by 90%.

The beautiful thing about email is that the 'features' have stayed the same - today's email can do essentially the same stuff that email ten years ago could - and yet it has evolved as a method of communication beyond its original uses.

The unfortunate thing about email is exactly that - it has evolved beyond its original uses. Not too long ago, paper communication was a must for any important document. Now, most banks encourage customers to use online banking for their statements - which, like many important online activity, is authenticated by email.

I don't think there's a person around who doesn't receive more emails today than they did a decade ago - many even by an order of magnitude. As OP shows, there are ways to adapt email organically, without changing the underlying protocol or standard. These sorts of adaptations are only going to be come more necessary as time passes and the volume (and type!) of email that people receive grows.

Sounds like another person in need of smarter inbox management. Coming back to 5,000 emails? Maybe he needs to unsubscribe from some mailing lists, and set up filters for project-related group discussions.