Earlier this week I watched this video starring Luis Suarez and his life in a corporate world without email. A powerful story that might feel a bit negated at the end when it turns out to be an IBM commercial. But then, having worked in IBM and knowing Luis, I know that Luis really works in this powerful way. With a minimum of email and highly interactive through the social channels.
After seeing the video and realizing the time consumption the inbox asks I was triggered to try to minimize my email behavior. In some cases it is pretty easy: just pick up the phone and in some cases uses instant messaging rather than email. I also found a quick win, that creates some kind of dilemma. I started unsubscribing from email newsletters again. The newsletters that I subscribed to in the past for a reason, but I don’t read anymore. They usually get deleted anyway.
The dilemma it creates is my own email newsletter. I send it out almost every month in both Dutch and English to approximately 1300 people globally. Every newsletter delivers some good conversation with old time connections, but also every newsletter stays with a significant un-opened rate. It serves a purpose and fits the social communication for a number of people. Clearly also for a number it is an inbox-filler. So maybe my next newsletter should be about inbox optimization and unsubscribing from newsletters?
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