The Few, the Proud, the Email-Free

I recently received an auto-reply from a VC acquaintance of mine, Mark Solon, indicating that he is currently running an experiment that I’m somewhat jealous of: he has essentially been off the grid since Memorial Day and intends to continue to do so until Labor Day. He has a few caveats, but is “off of email” for all intents and purposes for the next few months. As I think of what it would be like for me to follow suite, a couple of things come to mind. First, despite going off the grid 1x a quarter, I think Brad Feld (another VC acquaintance of mine and author of Feld Thoughts) would be hard pressed to be off email for so long (sorry Brad, I couldn’t resist). Second, as much as I’d like to cut down on the several hundred emails I get a day, I’m not sure I’d be willing to take the risk that I can be as effective. I use email threads to jog my memory and, on occasion, avoid “taking notes”. If I did all my communicating in person and/or over the phone, I’m afraid I’d begin to suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome from all the writing I’d be doing or — worse yet — forget something really important.

Having said all that, it’s nice for me to dream about being email-free but I really want to hear from all of you. What do you think…is email a productivity enhancer or destroyer???