Email, the tool of the lazy

Email has reshaped the business landscape, purporting to save time and money on communication of ideas and thoughts between workers. In an ideal world, such would be the case but several factors impede reaching such a utopian state with respect to the use of email. For one, users often fail to remain conservative on the content and number of recipients. As such, one can expect to receive several emails a day concerning subjects which have absolutely nothing to do with you or your work. Then, there is the whole spam thing. Sure, spam filters work wonders, but as none are 100% effective, we must waste time sorting through the false negatives. Lastly, email is a lazy man’s reminder tool—if you do not feel like talking to the person, send an email. Instead of taking care of an issue while it is at hand, send an email, the receiver often pondering holding off. “Hell, it’s just an email, so I’ll wait on it.”

You know this describes you in some manner, just as it does me. Unless I have a person on the line, the email can wait because the other person will never know if I have even read or started the task. Ha! This sad state of affairs allows our productivity to shift elsewhere for the moment (hopefully real work). This hierarchy of communication sets the tone for a task to be done: in person communication usually warrants immediate action, a phone conversation means that a task needs be completed soon, a note on the desk means I better go talk to that person, and the lowly email lets one put it on the back burner.

Is this really a loss or is the market using technology to create a new level of communication to fill that weird gap: a response is warranted, but whenever one feels like getting to it? Ah well, I guess I better check my inbox.