Email charter - cleaning up our collective in-box

It's been a quiet week on the Internet.

This morning I heard about an organization that limits its employees to no more than 3 recipients to any email.  This may seem a bit restrictive, but someone has to start email reform.  There are at least two good reasons to start changing our email behaviour.  First, there is too much of it and much of it is used for the wrong reasons. And, second, future generations are not interested in using email as a communication channel.  They only use it when they have to, but when they are in charge, we'll all have to change.

Relatedly, a friend sent me these clever and insightful guidelines for email use that will save us all time and energy.  See the E-mail Charter.  As you will have freed up an extra few minutes not sending emails, you might click through links explain the how and why some individuals and organisations have so much trouble with email.  For example, they explain why it (counter-intuitively) takes more time to read email than write it.  And, how this is a 'tragedy of the commons' problem.  Worth a look.

BTW, I got this linked to a (brief) email, with the tag: 'Why so brief?'  A nice way to spread the word.

Other stories on email clutter:

Messages galore (NY Times)