No Email on Fridays

What a great idea! US Cellular has started a new policy on Friday's that prohibits employees from sending emails. According to US Cellular it has been wonderful for the company. In fact it is working so well, that they are also going to prohibit meetings on Fridays.

Some of the comments by employees are remarkable. One guy discovered that a fellow employee that he emailed often was not in fact, across the country, but rather, just across the hall. The productivity has increased because employees are making the most out of their emails the other 4 days.

Emails can be obscure, misunderstood, and sometimes a complete waste of time. I suppose the same could be argued by blog comments too. People need to continually remind themselves of the importance of talking to one another in person.

This article also made me think...what if ISP charged by emails sent and received like cellular providers do for texting? Imagine only getting 250 emails a month and then being charged for overage.

Email Addictions

Is email a problem for you. Do you send to many? Do you receive to many? Are you addicted? Well, good news if you are. There's now a 12 step program to help you overcome your addiction.

However, as good as some of these ideas are, some of them simply won't work for people in certain fields. Some businesses survive on communicating through email and a few of these steps just are realistic if you like your job and want to keep it. On the other hand, if you lose a client because you are too focused on email, the program may be exactly what you need.

Here's what I don't understand. It's number 10 on the list: "Reduce the amount of email you receive." Great, but how do you that? There may be a few people who you would have to put on your blocked sender list or ignore all together because they send so many emails. Yet most of their emails are probably important.

What did we do before email and cell phones?