I believe that email is my sanctuary.
...and that it could be your sanctuary too.
Below I will describe how to make your email a sanctuary, perhaps even a private one.
A sanctuary is a place where your attention will be placed deliberately on the communication.
When an email comes into my inbox, I want to respond to it in a present way.
When only a few threads are circulating at any one time, I am more capable of traveling deep into a subject with a person in order to bring about greater understanding. Sometimes it takes a few days to respond in a present way.
A sanctuary is a retreat, for dedicating attention to work that matters. At a sanctuary you feel no pressure to be hanging around all day waiting for people to show up and knock. If random guests knock, they would probably interrupt your meditation. We all take off our shoes, kneel, and speak in a respectful way while we are present for the communication in a sanctuary.
When you're receiving hundreds of emails a day, you are simply hitting reply and typing as quickly as possible -- this is not communication, it's redistributing dead energy. The same is true for responding to every single comment on your blog.
Redistributing dead energy does not bring positive energy forms, such as money and inspiration.
Twitter is a restricted length (140 characters) one-to-many conversation form, allowing communication to assist the collective instead of simply being behind closed doors. Now that collective discussions are the standard of world communication, 1-to-1 seems antiquated except in very high-level conversations which can take place at the sanctuary or with direct messages on Twitter.
The reality is that most of my high-level conversations are taking place F2F, which is the highest data transfer.
You'll find that when you ask the collective for an answer on Twitter, instead of a person who may be very busy creating their own work, you will come to a more centered and complete answer to your question.
Email was invented over 40 years ago, back when the only thing they could compare it to was a postal worker driving a truck. It is a dated technology. Most of the most incredible people I know barely use the medium anymore, they use Twitter and/or intuition instead.
One of my long-term goals for 2011 is to eliminate email completely from my life.
In January 2011 I processed less than 150 emails (about 4.5 emails a day.)
In February 2011 I processed less than 175 emails (about 6.25 emails a day.) There were slightly more due to launching a new book and supporting the launch of a publishing company.
I define 'processed' as deciding to reply to the email. If I receive emails that do not need to be replied too, I either hit archive or create a filter to send them to the trash if they should choose to come again.
I don't list my email publicly. It's only available to people who subscribe to my paid newsletter, work with me on a peer level, and very close friends/family.
I direct all incoming communication to Twitter. On Twitter, communication is observed as a flow-state, not a 'must-read/react' state.
I'm not interested in communicating with people (on the Internet) who do not know how to use Twitter. We speak different languages at this point because of the exponential techno/evolutionary gap.
If you're receiving emails that are seven paragraphs long, you're interacting with non-twitter users speaking old english. These people are not fluent in the advanced mental cybernetic languages described in Augmented Humanity and developing now/in the future. It is in their best interest to adopt Twitter now, or be left behind as humanity jumps ahead exponentially.
How to make email your sanctuary
I discussed strategies in depth for checking email once per day in the productivity section of Minimalist Business.
- Automate your business
- Set your filter higher than you
- Set the expectation that you check email once per day
- Reply to important emails, filter the rest
There is over 200 pages of information about how evolve your business to this level in Minimalist Business. This is recommended/required reading if you're having trouble pulling yourself away from your inbox.
Once you've reached a manageable level of email per day, simply remove your email from your public blogs/profiles/etc. Redirect to Twitter.
Educate your collective, in a similar way to what you see above, on why you've decided to eliminate email from your life, their own lives will benefit.
Eventually we should be able to eliminate email from our lives completely. I'll be working towards this, and will tell more of the process as I experience it.
When you've eliminated email from your life, you're able to invest more time in deepening the value of your work and enjoying the freedom to explore your life in the world.
#nextnet will not support email.