Let’s face it, email is a necessary evil. Or is it? We decided to find out by doing without it for a day. The rules: No sending or responding to internal office emails (outside emails were allowed). And no IMs either (because that would be cheating).

“A breath of fresh air.”
With the experiment over, we’re glad to report we’re not as addicted as we feared. In fact, most of us found it to be a refreshing change. For starters, it got us up and walking around – no small thing given all the warnings about being sedentary. And it got us interacting more, discussing projects/tasks face-to-face, which turned out to be efficient and, well, pleasant. “I felt more connected to the team” was a sentiment echoed by many.

It’s the little things that add up.
What else did we come to appreciate without email?

• Not starting the day firing off (or fending off) a barrage of requests.
• Not compulsively checking that little mail icon on our computers and phones.
• Not dreading a return to our desks to see how many messages had queued up.

And, of course, we didn’t have any “multi-tasking” during meetings – just everyone’s undivided attention. Nice!

Would we do it again?
Sure. In fact, we’ve already scheduled our next email-free day and may even make it a weekly thing. Though a few of us might like to make a teeny-tiny exception for sending file attachments (after all, email does have a few redeeming qualities).