What’s next after casual Fridays? E-mail-free Fridays, or “Zero-E-mail Fridays”, as they call it at chipmaker Intel. There’s a great article in today’s issue of USA Today, describing this growing trend (“Fridays go from casual to e-mail-free“). Intel does it. US Cellular does it. PBD Worldwide Fullfilment Services does it, too.
The concept is simple as dirt. Take one workday a week – Friday (why not?) and lay off the e-mail. OK, e-mail isn’t exactly forbidden on e-mail-free Fridays, but people who practice it are strongly encouraged, on Fridays, to:
1. Meet face-to-face and discuss things, if at all possible, rather than send an e-mail.
2. Refuse to let the tyranny of e-mail control you that day, restoring this handy technology to its originally intended purpose, rather than to what it’s become today.
I’m gonna try it. Next Friday. My prediction is that come noontime, I’ll probably be Jonesin’ for my inbox. But I’ll probably have had a better day.
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Have a great weekend!
Hi folks, thanks for the link to the article and for you good post too. It’s right to the point for me either.
The idea of “e-mail bankruptcy” (mentioned in the article) seems a bit too radical, but limiting emails to a minimal alloted time sounds real healthy.
I would only setup “out of the office” auto-reply in order not to insult my good contacts by ignoring their emails.