No One Will Fix It, So YOU Better Fix It
by Michael Hoffman
Your IT department won’t fix it.
Your employees won’t fix it.
Microsoft won’t fix it – not with the New Outlook, nor with Co-pilot.
What’s broken?
Email.
Let’s understand why it’s broken, why no one can fix it, and most importantly, what you can do about it.
When I say email is broken, I don’t mean it doesn’t work—I mean it works just well enough that no one notices it’s broken. This may be easier to prove than you think. Just take a look at your inbox. I’ll describe it for you:
- It’s full, meaning you can’t easily see all the emails that require action.
- It’s sorted by received date, so you focus on what just came in rather than what’s urgent or important.
- There’s no action plan when you open Outlook. You check new emails, handle the quick ones, delete a few (maybe), do some filing (maybe), and leave the rest for later (maybe).
- You don’t know how many man-hours it will take to complete what’s pending.
- There’s no clear order of what needs to be done first, next, and so on.
- Aside from common threads, there’s no easy way to tell which emails are relevant for upcoming meetings.
- There’s no clear indication of which emails are due today—or which of those are the most critical.
- You don’t know which emails are due tomorrow or the next day.
- Your inbox has no built-in priority system.
I could go on, but the biggest challenge is this: Until you start working in a “repaired” inbox, you may not recognize these as real problems. That’s why no one will fix it.
- Your IT department won’t fix it because employees don’t complain—it’s seen as a personal productivity issue.
- Employees can’t fix it because it’s a software limitation.
- Microsoft won’t fix it because it’s not in their interest. To truly fix it, they’d have to make slight but fundamental changes to the interface—changes they haven’t made in 30 years and likely won’t start making anytime soon. They’ll try to convince you that MS Teams has solved it. It hasn’t, and it won’t.
Email will be around for the next 20 years, maybe longer. Look at the fax machine—it’s still here.
McKinsey says email misuse is costing 28% of the paycheck you hand out each month—that’s just time wasted. On top of that, think about delayed projects, missed deadlines, and unhappy customers.
What can you do about it?
Register here for the Free 30-minute LeanMail introductory workshop + optional 15-minute Q&A. Don’t miss this opportunity—every day that passes, email is costing your company more in lost productivity than any other knowledge worker process.
Book a short call or learn more and register for the demonstration here.
