E-mail Addiction – A good thing???!

New research released at the end of 2008 by Basex indicates that the U.S. economy loses $900 billion per year to information overload – including email addiction. So why does a recent online advice column in the San Francisco Chronicle have readers believing that email addiction is a good thing?

The column, written by David Robinson, says to a reader who worries that he might have an email addiction and asks how to break the habit, “Perhaps you don’t have to. Taking a break once every hour or so while you’re working on a big project is not only natural but probably a good way to keep your level of effort from tapering off.”

This advice is problematic at best.  Once you’re disrupted by an email, it takes an average of four minute to get back on track per interruption. Allowing yourself to be lulled into checking your email every time you have a new message is costing you time, and your company money.

This is why we declared this week the second annual international Clean Out Your Inbox Week.

We want people to use Clean Out Your Inbox Week to develop effective and efficient email habits by working as a group and setting up rules for email use. As an example, turning off the automatic send and receive feature and checking your email only five times daily, have helped individuals and companies reclaim hours of productive, billable time – not to mention saving them the stress of worrying about constantly checking their inboxes.

Email is an effective communication tool that we depend on more and more, however, we’ve developed a dependency to email that saps productivity. Lots of people can’t keep up with their Inbox and, since they don’t know how to break these habits, simply declare email bankruptcy. While starting fresh helps in the short term, it does little to change the ineffective habits that got them behind in the first place.

To read the complete San Francisco Chronicle advice column response, visit http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/01/11/JOBSrobinson.DTL

Information Overload Calculator

Want to calculate the information overload productivity waste in your business?

We’ve found a company that has a calculator you can use to estimate how much time you can reclaim by taking control of your information overload. Basex, a research firm, has developed this resource. Visit http://www.iocalculator.com for the INFORMATION OVERLOAD CALCULATOR. Be sure you’re sitting down when you view the results! Then turn to our resources to help you take your productivity back.

Here’s the link to the BASEX blog, too. Alot more great info there, by chief analyst Jonathan Spira…
http://www.basexblog.com/?p=3

A Perennially Empty Inbox – How ’bout THAT for a New Year’s Resolution?

Happy New Year, everyone!
This is the time when many people make resolutions for the New Year… so I’d like to add my two cents.

Resolve to empty your inbox every time you view it.

OK, so you might think I’m crazy… Whadabout those 200 emails you get every day? Yep. That’s alot. BUT. It can be done. I do it. Many of my clients and associates do it. They’ve found new freedom from stress.

We’ve talked about this several times in this blog, but the key to it all includes two mindsets:

1. Distinguish between “work” and “sort.”
2. Check your inbox as few times a day as your business allows.

1. When you go into your inbox with the intention of sorting that newly rec’d email, you’ll triage the work to be done in its correct priority, rather than become distracted by each incoming newfound treasure. the concept is easy, the practice is a bit more challenging. See our March posts for the summaries of our 12 Steps.

2. The world won’t collapse if you don’t check your email for 90 minutes or so, even tho’ you think it might. By spacing your inbox views, you actually allow yourself to focus on other work. Amazing! You’ll get more done, and when you do go into that inbox, you’ll have enough new mail to sort (and triage) that it makes it worth your while as a task.

So, are you up for that new resolution?
HNY!
Marsha