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I am a small business Conversation Consultant and public speaker that uses the power of the internet to leverage your success. Productivity in Context is a web magazine focused on Productivity and tools for organizing. Make this your headquarters for improving your life and work through increased mindfulness, education, and workflow practices.

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Today’s post is from Mike St. Pierre of The Daily Saint

Email is for grownups.  There, I said it and now I’ll walk away.  Seriously though, for those of us who work with young people, texting is the preferred medium of communication, not email.  Facebook postings would be a close second.  As for email, many young people think of it as old school, “so 1990’s” they will tell you.

But as an adult, I rely on email to send documents, communicate on a number of levels and in general get things done.  There are however some things that you just can’t expect from email users…

1. That people check email as often as you. It’s frustrating for folks who check email often to communicate with those who don’t.  Don’t expect that everyone else has the same availability or even desire to check email as often as you might.
2. That email will be the norm for business communication within five years. With the power of Facebook posts, texting and Twittering, email just might become a thing of the past within the next few years.
3. That sending an email ensures that the recipient will read it when you want them to. It’s not enough to send something very early in the morning and then expect that your recipient either got it or had the time to read it an hour later.
4. That emailing is a habit more than anything else. Most of the people I know have poor email habits.  I can fall into this from time to time as well.  Joan checks it daily.  Bob every other day.  Cary lets it pile up and then blitzes her inbox once a month at best.  Just accept this and figure out best ways to communicate with people- email might not be their thing.

In a GTD world, email is a must.  From a human nature standpoint, the habit of email may need work.  Clearing out open loops (i.e. an in box) and negotiating the agreements that email may symbolize is clearly a GTD principle.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/dkjlze. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen