The Hidden Productivity Benefit of Slow Software Tools

As a geek, I thought I would ever say this. But the day has come where I finally found a reason to be happy with slow software!

I know, crazy, right?

When we all want bigger, better, faster, more, to actually be happy something is running slowly seems … well, just wrong.

And I thought the same, until it happened to me.

Or rather, to my email.

This strange realization happened when I moved my email from an assortment of cobbled together solutions, to (mostly) Gmail. Or rather, Google Apps for domains.

Google has put out a cool software tool that allows you to upload your mail.app email up to a Google Apps email account. I took this as an opportunity to unify my ~10 years worth of email into one online, searchable, central database. Google search is very efficient, plus  the tagging and filters will be a real boon.

One weekend of uploading later and I had my email all ready and waiting at my finger tips. Awesome!

Turns out though there is one flaw I hadn’t considered.

Man, is my mail sloooooooooooow.

I mean, really slow.

Why is this happening? What is the cause? Could be because I am forwarding my chrisg.com email to the apps mail. Could be just that Google is a slow service. Maybe it is because their IMAP implementation is poor. Not sure yet.

What I do know is this whole slow mail situation has had a side benefit that I never expected.

When it takes ten minutes to get an email reply, I am less likely to get involved in email chit-chat, and I get more work done!

Previously I would immediately respond to any email that arrived within seconds, and again and again until the natural end of the email thread. I can’t do that now, the response times have been taken out of my hands. When I alt-tab to another application and alt-tab back there are no new messages waiting for me.

OK, yes, I should shut my email off (and that is probably the real situation), but being an email addict, I will take this solution for now.

Thank you slow email!

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Productivity

Comments

3 Responses to “The Hidden Productivity Benefit of Slow Software Tools”

  1. Kevin Boon on February 11th, 2010 9:28 pm

    Your the first I have ever heard make the comment that a slow computer is a good thing.

    But I like the idea.

    Tim Ferris in his book – the 4 Hour Workweek says email is a big time waster and we should close our email browsers when we have work to get done.

    I’m starting to create the habit of just responding to email twice a day (once before lunch and then at around 4pm).

  2. Chris Garrett on February 11th, 2010 9:33 pm

    Ha, yeah Kevin I think this will be the first and only time. I can’t imagine only checking twice a day but perhaps I will get there :)

  3. How to Defrag on March 7th, 2010 7:57 pm

    Great Article,

    I find that the best way to speed up a computer is by defragmenting it.

    You can use the Windows Defrag Tool that can speed up your computer by miles, I recently ran it on my five year old Windows XP Machine and now it flys!

    Saves you money as you don’t have to buy a new computer.

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