Hey, did you get my email?

Oh, have you checked your spam folder?

Nope, not there. Can you send it again?

Urgh, I don’t have my work email set up on my phone – any chance you can just WhatsApp me the info?

In short, email is dying a slow and terrible death, which is a rant we’ve gone on before.

To reiterate, this comes from the article I’ve linked to above:

…growing employee frustration over spam, the draining process of triaging important messages from the unfiltered mass, and the steady rise of alternative forms of communication – from messaging apps like WhatsApp to new software like Slack and Asana have prompted many companies and individuals to ask an inevitable question: how long will it be before the email can be consigned to history, like the telegram, the fax and the pager before it?

Well, how long before that happens?

If email is to die, you’re going to need people to buy into the next step in the evolutionary process. That may be a stretch too far for the ‘older folk’, who have just now mastered the art of forwarding an email containing a link to a video you saw eight years ago, but our hopes lie with the tech-savvy.

Mashable reckons you can “functionally give up email” with a few simple changes, and we’re going to let them run with it:

You may not have the option of ditching email in your professional life (bummer), but your personal life is hopefully all yours. So let’s focus on that.

Your first step should be acknowledging the few places where, unfortunately, you need to keep email. Think about when you purchase plane tickets or need to reset an online account’s password. Email here is key.

But don’t let the fact that you every now and then need to have an email address get you down.

No, this is a long and winding road, and whilst the end may seem but a speck in the distance, you soldier on.

Remember, you don’t need to open your email except in the few specific situations where you want to — say, for example, when you’re checking into that flight to Hawaii…

That brings us to the slightly stickier issue of other people. There are two approaches here: The auto reply or the email signature. If you just want to wash your hands of the entire thing, consider setting up an auto-response that goes something like this: “This email address is no longer in use. Please get in touch by other means. If the matter is urgent, text or call me.”

This accomplishes several things at once. First, it lets the person who emailed you know that you will not see their message. Second, it pushes the person to use other channels of communication that are not email. Do you frequently text, exchange phone calls, or Signal with the person? Well then, they can just hit you up that way.

If you’re setting up an auto-response, as suggested above, I would make one amendment. Don’t encourage people to call you unsolicited – that’s a slippery slope.

Message first, then call. It’s 2020, and we’re bombarded with enough robocalls from salespeople to last a lifetime.

Back to ridding yourself of email:

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it acts as a de facto filter. If the sender has no other way of getting hold of you other than email — they don’t know your cell number, Twitter handle, mailing address, landline, whatever — then maybe they’re not that close to you in the first place. And hell, if it’s really important, they’ll figure it out…

It is not your obligation or responsibility to make yourself available in the manner that best suits others. If people need to contact you, they will — email or no.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, the list goes on. They’ll find you.

I consider myself on top of my email inbox, so I’m not going to be adding any auto-responders just yet, but for those who have long since given up on the mounting ‘unread emails’ count, that may be the most viable option.

Whatever your thinking, I hope this finds you well.

Have a great day further.

Kindest regards.

[source:mashable]