Email is not your job

Reactive work is the downfall of productivity

It’s an obvious statement but one I can’t help repeating: Email is not your job.

I used to wake up, check my email immediately (awake to screen time of 0.01s) and then get to work answering queries. It would take me roughly an hour to plough through my emails and respond to those who needed a response. I’d add items to my to do list and then ignore them. I’d sit back and wait for people to reply to my replies. That’s what I thought my job was; email threads.

In fact I think a lot of people think that in the age of email a job consists of managing an inbox. This is reactionary work and unfulfilling. I hate email with a passion and it hates me back (yes, it is alive and can hate).

Recently I realised that it’s quite difficult to accomplish almost anything that I need to accomplish via email. I can’t sell subscription socks via email very well. Sure it’s possible but it’s more difficult than I’d like it to be. I can’t design new socks via email. I can’t increase SEO visibility via email and waiting for email replies wont help me make more money, that’s for damn sure. I can’t network with new connections via email. As you can tell, there’s very little that I can practically do via email that helps my bottom line.

Email is a communication tool that can be used to help you do your job. But email is not your job.