Now trendy: don't read email to avoid the tyranny of too much

The New York Times and a bizarre article this weekend describing the work of Timothy Ferris, who preaches the gospel of the 4-hour workweek. In his book, he encourages executives to outsource their email-reading to the Philippines and India and to do business by picking up the phone.

Now, I'm all for fighting the tyranny of too much, but the description in this article smacks of the Silicon Valley version of another Timothy Leary in the 1960s who encouraged people to, "Tune in, turn on, and drop out." And while I can understand the temptation to make your email someone else's problem that doesn't get paid as much and turn to real-time communication, all that really means is that the executive's voice mailbox is going to get full instead of her/his email box. Yeah, like that's going to help productivity. And an answering service, while good at screening calls, isn't the perfect solution either, since they still need a way to get "important" messages to you.

Yes, prioritization is a really good idea, but prioritizing by media type is just silly. And unless you're the NSA, the methods for prioritizing electronic communication media are vastly better than those for prioritizing voice. Dropping off the grid and becoming inaccessible sounds like a great idea until you are on the other side of that inaccessibility and can't get your business done. And you can bet those same people who embrace the 4-hour workweek will be the ones that scream the loudest when you refuse to take their calls.

I always say, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true. The four-hour workweek falls nicely into that category. I do have to give the Times credit for correct placement of their article, though; it was in the Fashion section, along with all the other fads.

Technorati Tags: email, Fashion, Productivity, Timothy Ferris, Tyranny of too much