Taming the Email Beast
Today most of us are displaying
symptoms of being time starved. Feeling constantly tired, groaning at the
thought of another meeting, and particularly groaning at our in-box which is
the biggest time thief of all.
Today we’ve forgotten how emails
revolutionised communication. Enabling faster responses and better services for
our customers. Time is money so anything that can be done faster, more
efficiently has to be a good thing. Initially it felt great to keep on top of
emails in the evenings, weekends, holidays, making us feel in control.
20 years on and herein lies the
paradox emails are now the beast to tame.
Bosses, peers, teams, customers, everyone expect immediate responses and
if not chase with another email.
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| Email Overwhelm |
Research indicates businesses lose
US$650 billion p.a. due to unnecessary emails, with the average worker costing
their employer an annual US$10,000 because of distractions such as
emailing. Constantly dipping in and out
of emails increases distractions, reduces the ability to concentrate rendering
a worker less effective. From a neuro-scientific view our brains aren’t wired
to multi task, we perform better if focusing on 1 thing at a time.
Other detrimental effects include
the inability to build rapport with our work colleagues; no one makes the time
to talk with each other unless chasing an email!
Emails have created an addictive
way of behaving – stressing out “in case I miss something” and so it calls for
a radical change. Some organisations are doing just that and banning internal
email. What can you do at an individual
level?
- Try an email detox for 1 day of the week. Auto respond with you’re having an email detox and please call on number...
- Raise the bar on the detox – do it for a week.
- Set up a permanent auto responder that says you will only reply to external emails
If these leave you feeling cold
turkey start with simple boundaries:
- No emails between 10am – 4pm. Pay a forfeit if you break this rule to the company’s chosen charity.
- When you’re at home switch off the mobile.
- Set up a self-help group “12 steps email addiction recovery programme”
By
taking control of emails you’ll gain extra time, it will directly reduce stress
and increase how much you achieve each day and with that, increased job satisfaction.
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