On January 12th of 2009, my duck and I decided to go on Email Sabbatical.
The plan? To not read, write, or think about email.
I called it the let’s see what 2009 will be like without email experiment.
A month later, we wrote about it. In a post called The Great Email Sabbatical Experiment.
And we haven’t written about it since. Well, other than the hints I drop all over the website.
So I was all set to do a hey it’s been an entire year update post on the anniversary but then we missed it.
Disclaimer-ey note: I am not trying to get you (or anyone else) to quit email. I honestly do not have an opinion on this.
First things first. Quitting email is hard.
Honestly, I thought the insane emotional addiction aspect would be the rough part.
But even once that passes, there’s still all the other hard.
It took a lot of time, tearing-out-of-hair and trying-of-stuff to come up with the systems and the work-arounds that make it work.
So. What didn’t work and what did. Like a Friday Chicken but for my email sabbatical.
The hard, the challenging, the stuff that didn’t work.
Finding ways to not piss people off is pretty much impossible.
Whenever you establish boundaries, there are always going to be some people don’t like it.
Their stuff comes up and they’re too close to it to see that it’s theirs.
And sometimes they’re really vocal about why they don’t like it (and how much).
This is the hardest when it’s friends and people you really care about. Their stuff triggers your stuff. Your stuff triggers their stuff. Hard.
Training someone to answer my mail was pretty complicated.
I have been fortunate to have excellent help. Both my first First Mate on the pirate ship and the current First Mate give great email.
The thing is, even with you have a someone — and even if your someone is as capable and delightful as my someone — there’s still a pretty intense learning curve.
You need strong, inspired, flexible, agile systems. And your someone needs enough personality and experience to be able to ditch the systems and respond from the heart when that’s what it takes.
Getting people to stop writing? Or expecting a personal response? Even complicated-er.
It’s not exactly a secret that I don’t do email.
It’s right there on my ironically named contact page. And in the FAQ and on Twitter.
Which has definitely slowed down the hundreds and hundreds of daily messages to something a lot less overwhelming and terrifying. But yeah. You exist. People have stuff to say to you. They will write.
It takes time to get everyone used to the idea that this is how things are.
Okay. There’s really no such thing as no email.
Because even when you don’t have access to an inbox or a program, you still get inundated with messages.
Between Facebook, Twitter DMs, LinkedIn stuff and everything else, there’s still a steady flow avalanche of asks, concerns and general wanting-Havi-time.
I love hanging out on Twitter (it’s my favorite bar). It’s just that I go there to goof off, and when we first announced the email sabbatical, Twitter became a customer service center and it sucked all the fun out of my life.
And sometimes it seems like its easier to just respond than to try to find a nice way to say “sorry I don’t do even non-email email, please send this to the support staff”.
And oy-va-voy to you if you do respond because then it’s all over.
So you need to build some serious systems.
And each time you tweak a system, people will find another way to sneak around it.
Plus, there will always be some things that your First Mate doesn’t know how to deal with. And those pile up.
And pretty soon, you have a full inbox. It’s just not your inbox. But you still have it.
The long, hard process of trial-and-error.
The short version:
Having good systems is a lifesaver. But creating good systems kind of hurts my brain.
Big learning curve.
It’s not cheap. It’s very not cheap.
Still worth it, of course.
Because the way I see it? It’s still significantly less expensive than the amount of therapy I’d need (and all that time lost to emotional breakdowns) when my entire day is spent dealing with putting out fires.
Not to mention all the internal work and blah blah processing process-ey process that needs to happen when people fling shoes at me all day.
But yes, big crazy investment. Especially at first.
Not IM-ing with Nathan.
Hey, Nathan! I miss you!
So. That’s a hell of a lot of hard.
And I’m going to save what did work for next week.
But I will tell you this much:
All that hard is still nothing compared to my life pre-email-sabbatical.
A year ago I kind of imagined that it would be really fun to go back to email at the end of my sabbatical.
That I would have worked through this stuff — and with my new, healthier relationship with the guilt and the shoulds, it would all be different.
What actually happened is the thought of going back to email makes me want to gouge my eyes out.
So sabbatical is now officially retirement.
And this whole being more conscious about respecting my capacity thing is no longer in “hey, what an interesting experiment” mode.
Comment zen for today.
I know this is a sticky topic, with a lot of built-in guilt and uncomfortableness.
And I hope it’s clear that my process is not in any way meant to be a “this is how you should do things”.
Here’s what I’d love:
- your thoughts on process, systems, capacity, interacting with making changes.
- other things that are rough about transitioning out of email (that I didn’t think of or forgot to mention).
- support and acknowledgment for doing something challenging and hard.
Here’s what I’d rather not have:
- Explanations of why email actually is really great or why it’s necessary. I’m not anti-email. I’m not anti-you-doing-email. I’m just anti-situations-in-which-Havi-has-to-do-email.
- Shoulds about how I really ought to have handled things differently.
Thanks, guys. Jessica Rabbit kisses to the commenter mice and all my Beloved Lurkers.
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Havi – HAVI!!! I love this – I love the experimentation here – the vulnerability – the way you do stuff that works for you even when it’s hard —
and how you gently (but with strength) explain things in a way that doesn’t feel like you’re asking for anyone’s approval but also doesn’t sound like you don’t give a shit what people think or feel.
It sounds like having an e-mail sabbatical (or e-mail retirement, as the case is now) is part of what helps you share you Havi-ness with us, so WHO could complain? Who’d want less Havi-ness?? (p.s. glad you’re not going to gouge your gorgeous eyes out!!)
.-= Square-Peg Karen´s last post … How (Not) to Name Your Business =-.
I can’t even imagine trying to train someone how to answer my email (hello, control issues). I think it’s amazing that you pulled it off well enough to retire permanently.
Looking forward to read about the Good. (Mmm…capacity.)
.-= Victoria Brouhard´s last post … The First Law of Shmorianism =-.
Sounds like your email came with a lot of demands, and at such a volume, email retirement totally makes sense to me. Interesting to see how different people deal with popularity and establishing boundaries so they can still function and thrive.
Good systems take time to develop because you don’t always foresee everything they need. Being flexible with course corrections as you go really helps.
.-= claire´s last post … Sketchbook, page 13 =-.
I always love reading about your experiments Havi. I am also grappling with systems and figuring out how I want to do things… it seems like a huge complicated process and I am feeling a little daunted about the whole thing.
Still, reading about your hard helped me figure out what to watch out for! 🙂
.-= Nathalie Lussier´s last post … 11 Snacks to Silence Your Stomach =-.
You’ve made the decision that’s right for you and right for your business. Don’t ever be ashamed of it; we’re all the prouder knowing that you know how to do the right thing.
.-= Elizabeth Howell´s last post … Dozens of NASA Twitter accounts, one user experience =-.
Wow… I can’t imagine doing an email sabbatical much less lasting a year! Good for you for having the strength to do it!!
While I don’t have an overwhelming amount of emails (or any contact method)right now (likely cuz I don’t have a business thinger either)I find the idea of just drawing those lines useful in other ways 🙂
You keep doing what you’re doing and inspiring people.
.-= moonslark´s last post … Spring Check in: I want to change my LIVING arrangement =-.
One day many moons from now I might experiment with going without email. At least for work purposes.
Looking forward to your post on what did work. 🙂
.-= Monique´s last post … Escapism =-.
Wow, this inspired me to delurk and leave my first ever comment here. Mostly just to make supportive, I-know-how-hard-this-might-be noises.
I set boundaries with my cellphone. First rule of cellphone: it’s there for my convenience, not anybody else’s. Second rule of cellphone: see first rule of cellphone. In practise, this mostly means I reserve the right not to answer a call or text either a) RIGHT THIS MINUTE NOW or b) at all. People are surprisingly hostile to the idea that I’m not answering their call when they know I’m ‘available’.
So, um, yeah. Rar! Go you for making this hard thing work!
My brain hurts just thinking about HOW to live without email. It’s pretty amazing that you did it for so long, and no wonder you want to stick with it!
Congrats on your experiment
~Christine
.-= Christine Bougie´s last post … Earliest Musical Memories =-.
oooo goodness. This is a great post. Clarifies things a little. A lot. Helps us to see things from your perspective. Because my God woman you get email!
But either way. I agree. Being clear about boundaries may bring up stuff, for sure. Yes yes yes. But for me at least clear boundaries are hugely helpful. I feel safer for knowing what they are so that I don’t run the risk of depleting your energy or anyone else’s for that matter.
So I applaud and support you for helping to create boundaries around your inner kingdom. I for one need that. It may sound strange – but it helps me. It helps to make me feel safe and to understand and respect someone else’s needs too. If your needs aren’t clearly expressed then I may struggle to know what’s appropriate for myself. Again this may sound strange because shouldn’t I just know anyway? But this is true for me.
So yep I love your clarity as demonstrated around your email sabbatical.
You give soooo much of yourself here every day on this blog. So much. We really don’t need much more. We gotta do some of the work for ourselves in our own space, body, time.
As always with heart and thanks!
Leila x
.-= Leila Lloyd-Evelyn´s last post … The key to happiness without having it all! =-.
When I think about email in my life, for personal things it’s pretty broken — I call my parents, I tweet my friends, my inbox is full of crud.
But for business… it’s the lubrication that makes everything happen. However, the big high muckety-mucks at my company don’t do it themselves, because they (a) have too much of it and (b) have higher value things to do with their time than deal with most of it. And this is why God invented executive assistants.
So the way I look at it, Havi just moved into the executive ranks with the whole assistant thing.
You are lovely. Really. Thanks for the support. Appreciated.
@Leila – thanks sweetie!
@Christine – oh me too. I remember reading about Tim Ferris outsourcing email and thinking I HATE THAT GUY and also I DON’T GET IT and WHAT A NIGHTMARE.
It really did take a long time to figure out the how of it, and then even longer to actually do it. 🙂
@Karen – I adore your cellphone policy. That’s fantastic.
@square-peg karen – kisses!
Can’t wait to read how you made it all work for you, Havi! I can’t imagine going to my inbox and having shoes flung at me every single day. Good for you for saying, “Enough, already!”
@Karen – I have the same cell phone policy! Everyone who knows me knows (not understands, though) that I feel no particular compulsion to answer the phone, at home or at work. That policy also extends to my front door. Just because you knock doesn’t mean I have to answer!
.-= Sherron´s last post … A Name to Grow Into =-.
I just want to applaud you, Havi, for making this switch to a post-email life. I remember my life before email as a simpler, happier time, and the idea that I could choose to go back to it? Well, it’s quite a comforting thought. I get nowhere near the quantity of email you get, but so what? If I ever decide I want out, I can do that. You set so many wonderful examples for how to live in the world, and I’m grateful for your sharing the behind the scenes look at how it goes. Thank you.
.-= Darcy´s last post … Book: The Freedom Writers Diary =-.
@Sherron and Karen: I used to have that phone policy, but my friends and family got really frustrated with me. Mostly the family, but some friends too. Ironically now that I’m quick to answer (or at least call back) I get called less often. Apparently I was only interesting to talk to when I wouldn’t answer? Or something?
I still hold that policy with instant messenger. If I don’t feel like responding I won’t.
.-= Monique´s last post … Escapism =-.
Oh, I’m with Victoria(shmoria!) on the control issues. controlcontrolcontrol. I can barely have anyone else talk to people in my shop *in person*. But written? Forever in ink? I’m sweating a little just thinking about it.
Obviously my stuff!
And to Karen – I have the same phone policy! It makes everyone else very cranky and needy…but you know what I tell them? They can email me! (the irony! but I much prefer to have them think through their need/question/ask and write it out then just ramble for 30 minutes on the phone!)
So, super proud of you Havi, for figuring out ways to make this work for you. It is the epitome of system-making! I’ve loved watching it!
.-= Tara´s last post … I’m not an expert =-.
Thank you for sharing this Havi. That is so awesome! I spent last 5 minutes fantasizing what my life could be like without email. I am not there yet, but one day…:)
When I was younger I used to laugh at the company directors who would get their secretaries to print off their e-mail and discuss them over a meeting table.
Now I’m thinking they might have been smarter than I thought…
For many years, our household’s recorded voice mail announcement said, in cheerful and courteous tones, “We are either unwilling or unable to answer the phone right now…” That “unwilling” part is important. I have never liked the assumption that one is supposed to drop everything and race to the phone just because it’s ringing NOW! No. If I’m in the middle of something else — even if that something else is just taking some quiet time for myself — I don’t answer the phone. Voice mail is my friend (even if it is a bit of a nag at times).
Havi, I think it’s absolutely wonderful that you have found a way to liberate yourself from a communication stream that had become such a burden. Congratulations on your email retirement! I offer you a virtual gold watch, with the inscription: “My time is my own!” (Don’t worry, I won’t be in the least offended if you stick it on a virtual shelf to gather virtual dust.) Thanks, as always, for sharing your path!
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … An open letter, from me to me =-.
Karen I love that reminder. I hate the thought I’m supposed to be at the beck and call of anyone at anytime at the end of the phone.. so I only really carry it when I’m travelling.
I’m a bit addicted to email really but don’t get the vast amounts i’m sure Havi did. What I have been doing it trying to return to older forms of communicaition, landlines, postcards, seeing people face to face!
I so get this. No, really, I do. Concern over what-to-do-with-all-that-email-and-stuff is part of what keeps me un-biggified.
I need a real live human that acts as a filter. And not just for email, but Twitter, Facebook, any and all of the social stuff. I like it when it’s optional, but when it feels like a should? I get overwhelmed and intimidated and afraid of shoes and then I procrastinate and it piles up and the shoulds get worse and and and
Ok, now THAT’s over … I did have the curious experience of being an email/contact filter for someone else, once upon a time. It was a rather unfortunate experience, because the person i was a filter for kept changing the rules of what he wanted to see, without telling me. So I know first hand how important and how tough setting up the system and a training process can be!
I guess I’m just really interested in the concept of knowing your capacity. And I’m really really impressed at how much progress you’re making on monitoring yours! It seems important, on a Pirate Ship. Can’t have the ship be too weighed down, or it sinks under its own weight — and there’s no room for treasures!
.-= Tori Deaux´s last post … I’m Running Off To Join The Circus! =-.
Congratulations! I think of your email retirement-nee-sabbatical as like watching someone swim across the ocean. I probably can’t swim that far, but maybe I can at least learn how to swim efficiently across a small pool, and then graduate to an Olympic-sized one, and then maybe even swim across a lake someday. This has inspired me to think that maybe swimming across an ocean is humanly possible. That maybe I won’t get eaten by sharks if I swim across a pool for a few hours. And maybe I could even someday try the ocean. But also permission not to.
So much admiration for you and Selma’s (& Marissa’s & now Richard’s) amazing feats!
.-= Kelly Parkinson´s last post … WWTKD? (What Would Thomas Keller Do—About Your Services Page?) =-.
so so so much support for doing something hard.
i think we get into these weird paradigm-acceptance places, where we stop inquiring what good something does for our lives. cell phones, for example. or email. or artificial sweetener. or factory farming. whatever the thing is, whenever some kind of ease or comfort gets introduced in, it gets so hard to think about taking it out. and yet, when you do, it seems like newer, better muscles (boundary muscles! inspiration muscles!) get built.
so props to you ms. havi! i am learning through this blog and your work to interact slowly and kindly with my Stuff, and all this reminds me of something Danielle LaPorte said the other day on her also very excellent blog: what is dying to be born? like, can’t wait to come out, needs to happen, but also the shiva-deconstruct-to-reconstruct thing.
not sure where i’m going with this, but something you said about interacting with new systems–maybe it’s all a way of making space for something newer and brighter?
A little bit over a year ago my TV died, rather suddenly. While I was making dinner. And my 4-year-old was in the other room being entertained by the TV. Because I was busy taking care of my 3-month-old and making dinner. In November. Bad timing.
But. But. It turned out to be a GREAT thing. Once we got rid of the TV we found all of this free time, I stopped fighting with my kid about TV, and she learned to self-entertain. It was awesome. The thought of going back to having a TV makes me break out in hives. I was dragged into my change kicking and screaming, but it has been awesome.
I’m glad that not doing email has been good for you, even if there is hard, too.
.-= Amber´s last post … If You Blog It, Will They Come? =-.
This has been such great going-against-the-grain inspiration! And I’m really happy you’re not planning to go back to something that makes you want to gouge your eyes out 😉
Happy belated Email Sabbatical Anniversary!
.-= Janet Bailey´s last post … The battle over bedtime, continued (or: Imperfect progress is still progress) =-.
Great post. There’s a lot for all of us to think about during these times where – if we want to – we can all be reached any time via different media. And a lot about boundary issues. As usual, lots of great food for thought.
@Karen: totally agree on the cell phone thing. I had a shoe thrown at me by a friend recently who can’t stand the fact that sometimes I don’t hear my cell phone or I don’t necessarily call back or I don’t sms back straight away and who thinks I am terribly old fashioned because we still have a landline phone at home. Just as annoying as people who re-send their email after a few hours just to make sure that you really got it because they didn’t get an instant reply.
What is it that tends to make so many of us slaves of all these various possibilities of communication? Maybe some innate fear of becoming ejected from the winning team? Survival of the fittest communicator?
Havi, I think it’s just awesome that you decided to not do email: you’re a Pirate Queen after all, which means you’re courageous, true to yourself, and you don’t let people should you into interacting with them, and you make it clear that people have to respect your boundaries. Stuff rising up like the tide – not nice, but then it’s not always easy to be a Pirate Queen…
I found out about your blog a month ago or so, and though I knew about you email sabbatical, I couldn’t resist sending you a long rambling email about how Dissolve Procrastination is awesome and how it has changed my life. But then, as I knew about your email rule, I didn’t expect a reply.
And you know what? It’s GREAT to know that the person on the receiving end WILL NOT FEEL OBLIGED to reply. I just felt like saying a huge thank-you, but I didn’t want to worry about “what if my email makes her think that she *has* to email me back?” Also it took out all the “Do I really want an exchange with that person? Do they really want to interact with me?” part. Our day-to-day interactions with other people are so fraught with shoulds, it’s such a relief to have someone say to you in substance: “I love you, but you can’t should me into replying to you.”
Which I take to mean: “I really love you, not out of guilt.” And that’s a wonderful thing to hear. 🙂
Oh, oh, I LOVED this. Yay Havi’s email retirement! I can imagine that setting up those systems was hard though, I know I might have to do it at some point but it’s daunting, for sure. It’s a good reminder that delegation is a whole new skill set.
I’m a bit rubbish at answering email. Even though I don’t get an unbearable volume, I do get easily overwhelmed by having to make so many decisions at once, so I’m constantly behind. I practice an unconscious ‘ignore it until it’s no longer relevant and then delete’ filtering system, which is probably both inefficient and rude but until I can find more efficient and saner systems, it’s the only way I cope.
.-= Kirsty Hall´s last post … 8 Excuses Artists Make For Not Having A Website =-.
Yes! Thanks for being so inspiring All the Freaking Time!
.-= Agnes Northstar´s last post … This post is kind of repetitive. Watch out! =-.
1. I have the same cell phone policy.
2. I will stop DMing Havi with support requests.
3. I just don’t get any email. Like, hardly at all. I’m totally not famous enough.
4. Zowee. A year, huh?
.-= Andrew Lightheart´s last post … How to present like Jill Bolte Taylor =-.
Thanks for the update! I was wondering how this was working out for you.
I often wish I could scale down or even eliminate email myself. But don’t know how I’d work out the systems to do that. I don’t get anywhere near hundreds of emails a day and still often feel like I’m drowning in email. Not fun at all.
Personally, I think the way email works as it is is unsustainable. I’m not clever enough to think of something better, but I figure it can only be so long until everyone gets overwhelmed and quits wanting to use it altogehter.
I adore the new metaphor mouse graphic, by the way. Well, I love all of Richard’s illustrations actually, so no surprise there. 🙂
Hiya Havi, Selma, Pirate Crew and everyone! Man, I missed this site while I was stuck off-net. I had severe withdrawals from my morning coffee with Havi and crew and the laughter it always brings me…plus the deep stuff that makes me scribble notes on anything that will let me scribble on it!
I was gone for a week and had 48 emails when I returned…which is crazy for me. I’m usually lucky to get two or three which is totally stress free. Of the 48, something like 30 or so of them were spam for cialis and viagra – like, hey, if you’re gonna spam me at least get my gender right! How about some girlie spam, ya mokes!
For me, seeing the note that you don’t do email was simply part of our introduction so it’s normal. Like I don’t answer my phone just because it rings or the door just because it knocks. They’re MY phone and door, there for my convenience, so it’s up to me when and if I want to answer them. And I can understand why doing it could be stressful. I know lots of people who run on-line businesses who get locked into this crazy cycle of spending HOURS just doing email. That’s nuts. So having others do it, yeah, totally cool. Because when a person has THAT many emails that leaves no time for doing The Thing and that is totally NOT cool. Making room in your life to focus on wellness, and on improving and loving doing your thing is awesome.
Plus, you always have the awesome comment sections where there’s plenty of interacting with you, that’s always fun and positive. That’s the BEST!
So I think you’re cool and brave for not doing email and who else on the planet could make NOT doing something Zen?! Rock on!
.-= Wulfie´s last post … Ode to Blogs I’ve Loved (with a little help from Willie) =-.
Havi, reading this post was such a revelation for me. Thanks so much, as always, for sharing! The part that resonated most strongly was about other peoples’ issues coming out whenever you try to set boundaries, and those people often don’t even see that the issue is theirs.
I’ve been working for a while now on feeling comfortable setting boundaries even when other people might be unhappy, and it’s wonderful to have your no-email “experiment” as a reminder of why it’s so important to gently but firmly set those limits.
James Sturm, who founded the Center for Cartoonist Studies here in Vermont, posted a few days ago on Slate about how he was going to be quitting the internet. At the end of the article are several cartoons he drew of the reactions he’d received so far. Somehow the cartoons make the reactions seem easier to bear: http://www.slate.com/id/2249562/