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by kylecazar 465 days ago
Do you work in a corporate environment?

Do you just wait for people to follow up with you on other channels when they don't get any acknowledgement from an email?

3 comments

This was a popular tip when Tim Ferriss published his "Four Hour Workweek" book: He recommended ignoring e-mail or only checking once per week, forcing anyone who wants to contact you to put in more effort.

People some times get away with it in some corner of an old corporate job where their job is stable enough that nothing matters. Their coworkers and manager usually hate it.

> Do you just wait for people to follow up with you on other channels when they don't get any acknowledgement from an email?

This is it. They shift the burden of communication to their manager and coworkers.

It's a tip that only sounds good if you imagine yourself as the one doing it.

Then one day you have to deal with a person who does this and you realize how painful it makes your job.

Yes, I know that this is what happens which is why I am upfront about it. If they hate it, they can tell me, I won't take it personally.

I like to think that I use the time saved not reading email to help those teammates and managers get actual shit done.

I am a swe at Google, and before that I worked at startups and large companies.

I'm pretty upfront that I only check my email once per week and that they should find me on chat.

Of course I make exceptions sometimes for certain things, but those exceptions don't turn into a lasting disciplined email routine

Lots of o orgs moved away from email as their primary comm tool.