People Who Complain About EMail Volume Have No Cognizance Of Productivity

Why is it so hard to delete and organize emails for people?

I’ve been working about 22 years now. I’ve had dozens to hundreds of different jobs, from contract to freelance to full-time. Most all of them have been “knowledge” work, an insulting term that had a much better predecessor of “white-collar work,” which I still prefer to use. Calling office Excel-driven workers “knowledge workers” is ridiculous, because most plumbers have more knowledge in their pinky than a “marketing manager” has in their entire body. I digress.

One of the common themes that holds together white-collar work is people bitching about their email volume. I would say it’s probably the single-biggest unifying aspect of white-collar work, because it’s certainly not culture, it’s definitely not purpose, and it’s definitely not salary or responsibility level. People love to bitch about email.

And look, there is reason to bitch about email, no doubt. Some notable examples:

• Reply-Alls that never end
• EMails that could have been phone calls or check-ins
• People who email everything but never have action items
• The confusing dance at the intersection of email and…