email = pain?

A while back I took a training class called "Action Management!". Say it with a deep superhero announcer voice.

The idea is that we receive requests for actions from many different sources. Email, voice mail, someone asks you to do something in the hall, etc. The class teaches techniques for managing all these requests to help you be more efficient and effective. In 4 hours, we got about 30 minutes of useful information, which is about right for these things.

Part-way through the class, the facilitator told an anecdote about an experience giving this training at another company. He asked "what is your biggest pain point?". "Email" was the replay. There's too much email, and keeping up with it is hard. "So, how much email are we talking about?" "Sometimes 50 messages in a day!".

At that point, the whole room starts laughing. 50 messages! Oh my goodness!

My record, a few days before ZBB, was 750 emails receive in one day. Yesterday I sent 50 emails.

This would explain why I think Outlook's email management tools are inadaequate.