Email Bankruptcy In A Wealth of Distraction
From the Eye on the Workforce Blog
by Joe Wynne
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Many recent articles have mentioned the problem with too many emails. It appears to be so bad that a name has been given to the situation where workers are giving up and deleting whole inboxes: email bankruptcy. This proliferation is evidently making the problem with e-mail addiction worse. Many people are not able to stop peeking at their inbox, whether it is on their laptop, “crackberry”, or other device.
Distractions are a major problem with productivity, keeping workers from focusing on high-priority tasks for more than a few minutes. Studies show that it takes much longer than you think to refocus on a task after a distraction.
Companies are trying things like “no email Fridays” or using new software to help prioritize or clean workforce inboxes. Every option will have mixed results, unfortunately, until workers themselves are taught to manage their time and tasks in an environment where distractions are everywhere. This should be a basic skill for modern workers.
Posted on: June 23, 2008 09:49 PM |
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Comments (2)
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 | Anonymous |
Forget email! What if the PM is the distraction? Unfortunately, we lowly workers can't delete the PM. How do you suggest we handle a PM who is so in our business that email is a welcome relief?
That was a great story on NPR, and I've been trying to follow the practice of sitting on an email if its not urgent and directed to me, and then 'poof' a week later the issue has resolved itself and i can delete. A wonderful thing.
The really bad day is when I spend the whole day treating my inbox as my to-do list, as I think was mentioned in the NPR story. Then you get nothing done the whole time except treat each new email as if it was your higest priority task. Thats a waste of a day.
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