Drastic times call for drastic measures. Luckily, this is not one of those times. Yet.

But, it’s time to act and face facts.

Fact. Email communication is losing its usefulness at an alarming rate. For some, including myself, email is almost past the dead cat bounce.

Let me try to quantify my problem. On average, based on last months numbers, I receive around 380 emails per day. Out of those 380, 37% are spam (incl. quasi spam), 44% are work related, and 19% are of personal/social nature.

Fine. If this was a semi static flow of information, it would be a serious hassle, but not a major problem.

Unfortunately, the flow is nowhere near static. It’s increasing at a steady pace. And what’s worse, most of the emails are dumped into my inbox within an eight hour window.

Now, add to that an avalanche of IM, SMS, and phone calls… You get the picture.

Hence, as many before me, I’ve decided to restructure my communication channels. Here they are arranged in order of preference:

  1. IM
  2. SMS
  3. Phone
  4. Email
  5. Fax

The things we have to do for the sake of efficiency and increased productivity.