Death by distraction in a world of message overload
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I often feel overwhelmed by the number of concurrent “threads” or “topics” in chat and e-mail. Is there a better way?
Many kids go to school thinking they’re going to be astronauts, doctors or entrepreneurs. The unfortunate truth is that a growing number of jobs boil down to sending emails and instant messages until you die.
Indeed, a cynical view is that the "Future of Work" is just replying "sorry for the delay" back and forth with someone until one of you leaves your respective company.
Ugh. There’s got to be a better way. I often find myself feeling overwhelmed by the number of concurrent “threads” or “topics” spawned by well meaning people via Slack, e-mail, WhatsApp, text, Zoom, Jira comments, Google Docs shares and phone calls.
And let’s not forget people walking to your desk asking if you have a minute. If I only we did. I honestly wonder if a tool like Basecamp that seeks to unify chat, mail, document and task management into one is not ultimately the best way to manage all this.
I’m still waiting for an organization brave enough to implement a weekly message quota. Every Slack and e-mail, multiplied by the number of people copied or in the channel, uses up that many credits.
When you run out you run out. I think it will improve focus and quality of communication immediately. Or maybe it won’t. But at the very least it is worth a try. There has to be a better way.