[Design] High End Email

[petite_abeille]

On Sunday, Mar 9, 2003, at 19:39 Europe/Zurich, Cory Preus wrote:

>>> + More: "If manage my email faster, all it does is let me manage 
>>> more emails."
>>
>> Ummm... right... what about:
>>
>> "If I get a better car, all it does is let me drive more."
>>
>> Which I would presume is a bad thing.
>
> On the outset, yes, I am guilty of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Which in pig English translated into something like "after this 
therefore because of this" or such...

http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/posthoc.htm

> I should have qualified it by stating that I believe email to be a 
> great communication medium and a poor _conversation_ medium...yet this 
> is what it has become. I tried to allude to the fact that we becoming 
> increasingly dependent on email.

Ummm...?!? In the same way some parts of the world have become 
increasingly dependent on the telephone or the electric grid?

>
> Ultimately, it is my biased view that a better email client is really 
> only a better way of managing inefficiencies and ineffectiveness 
> within email. So yes, "If I manage my inefficiencies (email) faster, 
> all it does is let me manage more inefficiencies (email, etc.)."

Well... is it not what this is all about: "managing inefficiencies"?

> It still appears to suffer from the very same fallacy...but I believe 
> that we get stuck in this cycle of faster is better, so we spend time 
> trying to save time. We go over the speed limit just to get somewhere 
> sooner,

"Road and highway; those are also two different conceptions of beauty."
-- Milan Kundera, Immortality, Part Five, Chapter 3

>  when we could've taken a moment to reflect and ask "what does this 
> email mean?"

Perhaps not much:

http://stripe.colorado.edu/~morristo/sisyphus.html

>>> Deletion is something we are uncomfortable with...like anything else 
>>> that has "finality".
>
>> Perhaps... or simply because "deletion" requires making a irrevocable 
>> decision now: should I, or shouldn't I.
>
> Exactly. The benefit of taking a moment to make that irrevocable 
> decision is that I determine whether it is or isn't relevant.

Right... but perhaps this decision is not warranted at the precise 
moment a system is pressing you to take it... plus the relevance of 
something may change over time.

>
>> And why should your software bother you with such trivial questions 
>> all the time?
>
> It shouldn't. It should, however, give you opportunity to qualify 
> relevancy without having to worry about the mechanics of doing so. 
> Filing an email is in all probability a meaningful email since you 
> consciously handled it. The email software didn't ask you any 
> questions, you made that choice.

Agree. Unfortunately there is not enough time to "consciously handled" 
everything coming your way. Therefore the use of some sort of automated 
prioritization mechanism is helpful to clear out the path.

>
>> All of this bring up an interesting option: the "out of sight, out of 
>> mind" inbox filter.
>
> When did you last go through those boxes in your closet? Maybe this 
> would be a good thing. I'd then realize how useless most of my emails 
> are. ;)

Exactly. This would perhaps provide some "perspective" to filter the 
ephemeral ("conversation") from the lasting ("communication")... :-)

Cheers,

PA.