📧 How to solve the email problem?

How many hours go into just processing email? One reason it's so consuming: when a message hits the inbox, it feels like it needs a response. It feels like real work.

There are several ways to handle the "too much email" problem:

1. Ignore it. Read some email, and let the rest get buried.
2. Filter it. Route newsletters and other non-critical emails to folders.
3. Use new tools. Tools like Hey or Gmail's automatic categorization help ensure only important emails reach the inbox.
4. Use other messaging tools. Signal, Discord, and Slack are now popular with teams. This may just shift the problem, but it's also easier to skip things that aren't relevant.
5. Solve the problem at the source. Shift more information to other mediums that are more appropriate for long-lived information, or move conversations to where the work is happening (issues, PRs, team messaging).

All of these help, but option #5 is worth a closer look — addressing the source of unnecessary email tends to be the most effective approach.

This is another example where I've found Release First helps with problems like too much email. A Release First mindset tends to shift information handling away from transient messaging systems to permanent ones — where information is useful, long-lived, and versioned.