{"id":653555,"date":"2013-04-21T11:00:35","date_gmt":"2013-04-21T15:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=632756"},"modified":"2013-04-21T11:00:35","modified_gmt":"2013-04-21T15:00:35","slug":"why-are-bad-email-habits-so-hard-to-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/653555","title":{"rendered":"Why are bad email habits so hard to break?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love the idea of making email suck less.<\/p>\n

As a reporter, email is one of the most important tools of my job: for communicating with sources, my editors and colleagues, companies I cover, receiving news tips, and more. Admittedly, my current email work flow is pretty awful. And I know I should get better about managing my email, especially on my phone, where I check it roughly 500 times a day. Still, I can\u2019t get myself to let go of my bad habits.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s weird too: when it comes to mobile mail, today is one of the <\/span>best times in recent memory to find a better solution<\/a>. My Twitter feed has been filled with glowing reviews from <\/span>many people who\u2019ve tried Mailbox<\/a>. And I love\u00a0Taskbox’s motto: \u201cmake [email] something people don\u2019t dread and people feel in control of.\u201d So\u00a0<\/span>I gave Mailbox a go. The experiment lasted less than a week (it still tells me I have 22,200 unread emails). I also gave Taskbox a try for at least two weeks for my work email only (current unread email count a slightly less intimidating 722). Both seem like great products, but I realized I don\u2019t have the patience to get into either of them. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s anything to do with those apps themselves — which plenty of people seem to love — but about the idea of change to a routine that is so critical to modern work — and life.<\/span><\/p>\n

My inability to stomach\u00a0change is even more ridiculous because of how awful my current email work flow is both on my desktop and my iPhone. I use Gmail\u2019s color-coded labels, which is plenty useful. But if I get an important email that I know requires my response but not immediately, I \u201cstar\u201d it and mark it as unread.<\/p>\n

It was Andrew Eye, CEO of Taskbox, who jokingly pointed out to me how broken email is: if \u201cthe only way to stay organized in email is to lie to yourself\u201d that you haven\u2019t read something when you actually have.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s right! But still — the idea of learning a new system of email, whether it\u2019s by prioritizing items or \u201csnoozing\u201d them kind of freaks me out. I can\u2019t miss an important email or misplace one even temporarily put it in a folder where I’m not immediately sure how to find it.<\/p>\n

And, no, I’m not completely averse to change when it comes to my digital life. I don\u2019t participate in the massive freakout when Facebook makes one of its inevitable design changes.\u00a0I was plenty adventurous about trying out several new calendaring apps; getting deadlines right is also critical to my job, but I was able to successfully switch over to Sunrise from my iPhone’s basic calendar app.<\/p>\n

But totally altering my mobile email routine seems like rebuilding the plane in mid-flight: there is never a good time for change.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I\u2019m alone either. Email is something people are super sensitive to altering. Even Google had a rough time rolling out too many changes at once<\/a>: at one point even the labels feature was too much for non-power users to adopt.<\/p>\n

Labels are standard now for a lot of email users, including me. And that gives me hope that some day I\u2019ll find a service that\u2019s able to drag me along to better email habits. But for the foreseeable future, I\u2019ll be at inbox 22,000.<\/p>\n

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