HBR has a post up all about a process for eliminating the scourge of email. Every year several publications dream longingly for a world where email doesn’t exist. Personally I receive about 75 emails on a slow day and my peak last year was about 275 in a single day. I’ve seen where others are above 1,000 emails a day and there is literally no way to keep up.
Different people use email differently. This brings us to the point that everyone now absorbs and communicate information differently. Information methods range from fixed on a PC, mobile on smart devices, analog with phone calls and a variety of other macro methods. Within each of these devices there are an exponentially increasing methods of actually keeping up with the deluge of tasks and data. Some use productivity tools such as Evernote or Wunderlist, others use Email to track what they are supposed to be doing, others use a paper day planner that they fill in each morning, others may go a bit rogue and just try to get done what is directly in front of them.
Some people like constant streams of information, others prefer fixed periods of intrusion into their work mode. Part of it comes down to how good some are at multi-tasking. Sometimes it is simply a method of communication their schedules and roles force on them. I know sales people on the road every day that cannot predict when their periods of availability will be and they simply brute force everything they need during short windows and nights. If you don’t catch them then you may not. Sometimes you are simply the victim of others’ communication patterns.
Trying to develop new mass methods of group communication is difficult. People now communicate through a variety of media based on the needs of a particular message.