The problem with email is that it's no longer a communication tool but a representation of the things you need to do. If it was just about communication, then that's one thing, but that's not what it is anymore. That's why you see so many people email themselves or say "yeah email me to remind me". But when you go down that path it's just an unorganized firehose. If we're stuck with communication tools representing "what we need to do", shouldn't we be building better tools to support that rather than saying "eh it's good enough"?
What I don't know that I've ever seen in these kind of "replace email" articles is an investigation of why, if email is so unsuited to this task, it is so widely used this way. It may turn out that the things the author thinks are disadvantages are closely related to advantages of email. For example, the complaint that, with email, anyone can "add something to your to-do list"; sure, that's a problem, but the fact that I can just ask any person I run into to email me a reminder without having to fiddle with my email system to allow them to do that, is actually a big advantage. The challenge for an email replacement, then, would be to allow more control over this without introducing any more friction.
People are doing this because it just works. With email nobody needs to be on the same page in terms of email software stack, TODO organization, having all tools necessary to file an item in TODO list on hand, etc. It's the same thing like using plain old paper to scribble down things and do something better later on, going over notes, when time/place permits.
It may look inefficient, but it doesn't have to be 100% efficient - people are inefficient, live with it.
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The problem with email is that it's no longer a communication tool but a representation of the things you need to do. If it was just about communication, then that's one thing, but that's not what it is anymore. That's why you see so many people email themselves or say "yeah email me to remind me". But when you go down that path it's just an unorganized firehose. If we're stuck with communication tools representing "what we need to do", shouldn't we be building better tools to support that rather than saying "eh it's good enough"?
What I don't know that I've ever seen in these kind of "replace email" articles is an investigation of why, if email is so unsuited to this task, it is so widely used this way. It may turn out that the things the author thinks are disadvantages are closely related to advantages of email. For example, the complaint that, with email, anyone can "add something to your to-do list"; sure, that's a problem, but the fact that I can just ask any person I run into to email me a reminder without having to fiddle with my email system to allow them to do that, is actually a big advantage. The challenge for an email replacement, then, would be to allow more control over this without introducing any more friction.
People are doing this because it just works. With email nobody needs to be on the same page in terms of email software stack, TODO organization, having all tools necessary to file an item in TODO list on hand, etc. It's the same thing like using plain old paper to scribble down things and do something better later on, going over notes, when time/place permits.
It may look inefficient, but it doesn't have to be 100% efficient - people are inefficient, live with it.