Comments on: Every Single Email Client (That I Know Of) Is Completely Broken and Here’s Why

By: Email is Dead, Long Live Email | Erich Stauffer

Email is Dead, Long Live Email | Erich Stauffer — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:44:28 +0000

[...] find a low rumbling in the hacker community about how email is broken 1, 2 (or not broken 3, 4). Email is still the main communication medium on the planet besides [...]

By: Forrest

Forrest — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:38:30 +0000

I look at email like a big bucket underneath a lot of filters. Those filters are like “IF file is large AND user is tech savvy THEN use FTP” or “IF message is related to project THEN message goes to project management system.” Email is a last resort – it’s the last form of electronic communication.

Email is everything to everyone. Some may consider it a productivity application, but many do not. Maybe someday there will be RFC standards to offer some sort of cross-platform features for users who want to utilize email for productivity, but that just doesn’t exist right now. Mail.app does have tasks which can be added to iCal… but I don’t think that’s cross-platform.

So for the time being, I think email is just going to be electronic goulash.

By: ed

ed — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 22:11:57 +0000

Right, except the vast majority of us don’t use these clients as a “productivity tool”, we use them for, wait for it… email! So yeah, don’t show me my empty task list because I don’t care and I don’t need it. I have yet to find a digital task manager that is better than a pen and paper

By: Bill Seitz

Bill Seitz — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 21:55:29 +0000

Yes, it’s a shame that OSAF’s Chandler project was so borked.

By: Brian Dunbar

Brian Dunbar — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 21:46:29 +0000

@scottporad
But, all these tools promote themselves as productivity tools,

This would not be the first time that copy churned out by marketing failed to mesh with reality.

Me, I would _like_ to be able to take email, click a button, and have it become a task. The reality is it’s a lot cleaner, more portable, and do-able to spend a few seconds creating a task in todo, copy/pasting as required.

Then I ignore email for another 90 minutes and get back to work.

By: Mike Walsh

Mike Walsh — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:27:33 +0000

I agree that email tends to hurt productivity more than help it. I think its a “bait and switch” – email offers the chance to avoid in-person or real time interaction in favor of the opportunity to process messages/tasks/issues when we want. Th problem is too many people are lured to their inbox to process messages as they come in – usually as a method of avoiding their true tasks :->

By: scottporad

scottporad — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:19:12 +0000

@aaron, you’re right. But, all these tools promote themselves as productivity tools, and premise of e-mail is that it helps you be more productive.

By: Aaron Hockley

Aaron Hockley — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:12:45 +0000

As you note, a task list and an email client are not the same thing. If you stop treating your inbox as a task list, you win

If you want your task list, use a task management system such as OmniFocus, Remember the Milk, Outlook’s task view, or a paper solution. Email retrieval and responses are tasks. When you get to those tasks, use the right tool (your email client).

Saying your email client is a bad task list is akin to dialing in and checking your voicemail and saying it’s a bad task list. You don’t spend all day checking voicemail do you?

By: Jason Grimes

Jason Grimes — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:10:56 +0000

Scott,

Excellent comment. We find our RescueTime (yes, I work there – http://www.rescuetime.com) users wanting to integrate time management and task management. What we can do is continue to spotlight just how much time users are spending in their mail – and often times that number is scary high like 30%. I agree we need to improve how we communicate and email would be an excellent start.