Useful e-mail
What could you do with another 9 hours a week? That seems to be the approach to a California survey on how much time we spend on e-mail, whether on a desktop computer or a hand-held device.
I find that take on the results to be flawed. We need to spend time with email. We need e-mail! How much time would it take up to communicate if we DIDN’T have it?
The survey shows many executives are slaves to the system, checking their e-mail almost compulsively every few minutes, hoping something important will come in. Or they’re being pinned on their Blackberries every few seconds and not every message is worth the trouble.
To me, that doesn’t mean e-mail is a problem. People are the problem. I don’t think e-mail is a waste of my time. If I choose to waste time using it, well, that’s a different story.
The survey finds billions of dollars in productivity is lost through these e-mail addictions. Then, of course, there are those forwards of lame jokes that go around and around ad nauseum. But for the most part, in my experience, e-mail is a necessary tool that’s used for good, not evil. Don’t blame the tool! Blame the tool’s user.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
E-mail, the necessary evil!
In today’s business environment e-mail is a necessary evil which if used appropriately can allow us to communicate with others without being tied to the phone as in the past awaiting to hear back from the other person. E-mail can be checked or sent 24-7 whether a person is at their desk or office or not. The problem with e-mails is the over importance we not only place on the e-mail and our all to often lack of time management.
You send your Eemail and then move on to other business having taken care of your previous task in the e-mail. If you’re sitting there waiting for a reply afterwards, then you’ve got way to much time on your hands which isn’t exactly productive.
… now back to my approx 1000 e-mails I receive each week.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Totally correct, Lisa. It’s the user. I refuse to answer emails that are directed for communication, e-mails are for moving data and drawings the telephone is for communicating. If you use e-mail for communicating, you are missing the personal touch and business loses its effectiveness without that. I have employees in my office who try to communicate with it and I completely ignore those e-mails and tell them if they want to talk to me, get off their butts and walk down the hall. It’s the users who are abusing and misusing e-mail and i spend less than an hour a week dealing with them.