Arieh, I think the essential problem with email is that it is easy. It doesn’t take the same kind of effort and commitment as, for example, writing this blog post. If people had to face the possible fact that every email they sent would be posted to a public forum, I think they’d be much more judicious with what they sent.

And Paschal, I consider it one of my duties to educate my clients on collaborative technologies. It’s not always easy, but I try. You in Toronto just yet? Give me a call if you are.

It’s funny because I know people just send an email because it’s easy - the hot potato is quite alive with email, especially when many people are working on a large project. For me, I often ask direction for what I should/should not be doing from my boss. If it does not fall under me, I just say I cannot do it.

The big ‘N-O’ is an important thing to learn - when you say yes all the time, it becomes harder and harder to say no!

Honestly - the only way I avoided going into bankruptcy was literally to transition a sizeable portion of my email-based work to a person on my team who works in the Vancouver office. Yep, I begged out of it by getting an assistant. Otherwise I was killing the majority of my work day just clearing mailboxes. It got to be too much.

Now, aside from the spam-bomb that seems to have gone off this past week, I’m down to less than a hundred actionable messages a day and I’m loving it.