Can you survive a day without email?

Apparently, this is a question that was asked by one CEO to his employees of a company. And the answer was overwhelmingly, Yes! The CEO has banned all internal emails on Fridays. Of course the employees can still exchange emails with external parties, but no internal emails unless it is absolutely necessary. He had some withdrawal symptoms, but so far the experiment has been a success.

Why has this CEO decided to ban such a effective and productivity booster tool? It happens that we start using email to communicate than other (sometimes) better means like face to face meetings and / or phone calls. You send emails to your fellow workers who sit right next to you. Even I do that. Why do people do that? I can think of some reasons.

1. You can compose your thoughts and review and re-review the message to ensure that you don't ruffle any feathers.
2. You can at least for some time ignore the email message sent to you
3. You want to get on record and / or cover yourself.
4. You want to be able to effectively follow-up and track.

I am not saying that these reasons are essentially bad or wrong. Sometimes you need to do that. But these also do not foster team spirit and a feeling of belonging. If you can't trust your colleague, then you can't be very much productive or effective regardless of the tools that are there at your disposal. Of course there's the watercooler and the coffee station, but in such an atmosphere, it becomes more of a social greeting place where people exchange pleasantaries.

While email is a effective and tremendous productivity booster tool, it can literally take over your life. The urge to check email is a very powerful one. I have read somewhere that the words, "You've Got Mail" are more exciting to some than sex. Now that's really powerful. And have you seen those people with Crackberries, (Oops, did I just say that?), uh, I mean Blackberries? They are like constantly checking their emails no matter where they are. I have seen them in Metro (back when I was in DC), in meeting rooms, in Starbucks', at restaurants, on the road, all over. You name it and they are there. They are all hip and cool with their smart phones hooked to their hip holsters and pull it out like a gun as in the wild west movies.

So after all this rhetoric, can I do it? Can I stay away from e-mail for a day? I think I can but it will be very difficult. I have setup mobile alerts from my cell phone provider to send me SMS to my cell phone for all emails recieved on my Gmail account. It's nothing but just a one liner. The sender's name and first few words of the subject. I had gone on a weekend trip last weekend and couldn't help but checking if I had an email. The urge is so overpowering. But I think I should do it and I will do it.