According to TechDirt.com, some psychiatrists have been pushing hard to have internet addiction officially classified in the psychiatrist’s bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The American Psychiatric Association recently proposed its new changes for DSM-5, the first update since 1994. Andinternet addiction is actually being considered

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Hate having a Cluttered Desk? Then why are there so many messages in your inbox?

Keeping numerous emails in your inbox is akin to keeping all of your paper tasks strewn all over your desk.  There is no organization, no priority, no categorization.

If you hate having a cluttered desk, then apply the same principles to how you manage your inbox. 200+ messages hanging in that inbox is equal to having 200 notes, files, messages, sticky notes ALLLL over your desk, in no piles, or files, – just strewn all around.  That’s what you’re doing by leaving all that stuff in your inbox.

Your efforts to keep your inbox empty will hinge on the effectiveness manage all those messages coming in to your inbox. The key to this is:  GET THEM OUTA THERE!

This doesn’t mean handling or working all those items, it means organizing them. That’s where e-folders save the day. See our posts on how to set up folders 12 steps .

By creating separate folders to store emails that have arrived in your inbox, you are taking a proactive approach to the problem rather than a reactive method that will lead to stress down the line.

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With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Email Productivity Expert Urges Caution as Email Use Doubles in Coming Years

The latest projections for email use  has me concerned about the impact of information overload. These projections, released May 6 by The Radicati Group, Inc., indicate that the number of worldwide email users will increase from 1.4 billion to 1.9 billion in the next four years. The study also shows that the number of email messages sent per day will more than double by 2013 – going from the current 247 billion to 507 billion per day.

Given that the number of email users is increasing by 25 percent but actual messages are going to double, Egan is concerned about what this means for people already suffering from information overload.

Now is the time to be responsible. People need to consider each message, and ask themselves if email is really the best venue for that message. It’s so easy to default to email as everyone’s preferred medium, and then you’re just contributing to the overwhelm.

Every email interruption pulls people away from their current tasks. After every single interruption, it takes an average of 4 minutes to get back on track. That means it takes only 15 emails for you to lose an hour of productive, billable time. Think about the number of emails you actually get in a day – now imagine that doubling in the next four years. Egan asks how much time you’ll really be losing to email, and how easy it is to get overwhelmed.

The solution is to take a responsible approach to email management by getting your own email practices under control NOW. In order to keep email from becoming overwhelming, a cultural shift will have to happen around the way we all approach email.

Although there are a number of tools out there designed to help people manage their inboxes, I believe that the best solution is for the user to adopt effective email management habits now, to better handle the future’s onslaught – and we have the tools to get the job done. Are you familiar with our12-step program to help combat email e-ddiction, with tips designed to help individuals take control of their inboxes? 

With the increasing dependence on email, it’s really easy to get caught up in the information overload. We all need to stop now and take control of our inboxes in order to ensure that we don’t let our inboxes take over our lives.

To read more about The Radicati Group’s research, click here. 

Or visit:   http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/radicati-group-inc-releases-email/story.aspx?guid={E0B3FE72-FF77-4D35-B486-DE8CAB0C1074}&dist=msr_1.

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The main goal of proper inbox maintenance is to keep your inbox available for newly-received items. Don’t get the shakes…  it IS possible, and it DOES work.

Emptying your inbox does not mean HANDLING every item immediately; it means SORTING them.

By flushing your inbox each time you open it, you will be able to clearly label items, find them more easily, and respond appropriately to messages when the time is right. This way, you also avoid a serious accumulation of messages that need a response but ultimately get lost in the shuffle. After all, nobody wants to have to send a message that reads, “I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to respond to you; I have just been going through old e-mails and realized I’d never responded to your message.” By keeping your inbox clean and manageable, you will have a failsafe system in place to ensure that every message receives a response.

(excerpted from Inbox Detox (Acanthus Publishing, 2009))

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Join Social Media Mentor Tom Gray and me as we discuss how to detoxify your inbox, and manage your email productivity.

Here’s his post. 

And here is the link to the podcast, which includes at least 20 tips for managing your email and your inbox.

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Here’s something to try:  Pick a day, and Count each time you look at your inbox.  Tic marks are all you need. Go ahead. Then at the end of the day, count them up. How do you stack up? The average is about 70. Not to say that that should be your goal…

We’ve advocated checking your inbox 5 times a day.

So that means that for the average guy or gal, that is 65 less times. Think about this–how much time do you think each of those peeks costs? Most people don’t just look at the inbox, they open a few, and try to get rid of a few. Many unfortuately get drawn into working some of the small stuff just to try to keep the numbers down.

If this feels familiar, don’t despair – you’re not alone.

Believe this: it IS possible to check your email less.  The less you check it the more productive you’ll be. The key is for you to TAKE control of your habits, and decide when you’ll check, rather when your email wants you to…

Join us for our March Madness 1/2 off teleseminar March 24.  Visit http://LeverEdgeCoach.org/teleseminarschedule.html and use MAD50 at checkout.

Your target is 5 times a day. But – never forget to reward incremental progress! 70+= Not so good. 5 = Good

Send your questions our way – we’ll help.

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Maybe we are looking at this all wrong… Businesses are downsizing because they can’t afford the employee salaries and extras. Don’t they realize that most workers who rely on e-mail to communicate could be sucking the business dry with unintentional productivity theft?

Sometimes it is not just cost saving. Rather, if you can reclaim the productivity that has been lost because of a near pandemic of productivity sapping e-mail habits throughout organizations, you’ll see it in your bottom line.

Consider the impact of getting 10%-20% more out of each worker? Now THAT’S what will re-energize the economy. See our prior posts for how to make this all work…

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Here is a review of my book, wanted to share – Inbox Detox:

If you’re anything like me, you can’t function without email. We rely on it daily for communication across the office, across the city, and across the world, and it has probably had a greater impact on global communication than even the telephone. And yet, there are countless untold C-level executives with thousands of unread emails in their inboxes, an embarrassing amount of people who call you just to “make sure you received that email” they sent five minutes ago, and more SPAM than you can imagine.

 
In Inbox Detox, Marsha Egan offers both the diagnosis and the cure for toxic email behaviors. She asks readers to cast a critical eye on their own email (and, by proxy, productivity) habits, provides a model, 12-Step Program Style, for dealing with those habits, and then details newer, more productive ones. Egan breaks down the email issue into its most basic problem: email misuse is a constant drain on productivity, and therefore a constant drain on the bank account.  

Inbox Detox is basically a step-by-step guide for both companies and individuals who have recognized that their own email habits have become problematic. Egan takes the readers through a program to help them clean out their inboxes and learn to manage their workload, making it clear that this is about more than just moving a few emails around.

When I first picked up Inbox Detox, I was unsure if I would find anything in it for me. After all, email has become such an integral part of business, and everyone handles it differently, so what could this book possibly teach me? I quickly found that I was absolutely wrong. Egan doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to getting the reader to call his own behavior into question; with the in-book evaluation and diagnosis tool, readers will know the extent of their own email problems within the first 30 pages of the book. She holds readers accountable for their own email habits – likely the only way to persuade them to actually change. 

Egan also answers possible critics right out of the gate. She makes it clear from page one that this isn’t just about changing practices, but habits – a much harder cycle to break. She asks readers to fundamentally alter the way they go about their business in order to become more productive. And Egan has gone out of her way to make the book relatable. Her style is companionable and easy-to-read, and the book and the tips within are easily digestible – pulled quotes, graphics, and the all too recognizable “Toxic Emailer Alerts” make for quick and engaging reading.
Though this isn’t the most formal of business books, Egan keeps the information accessible to a wide audience. The message is clear: email is a widespread problem that affects both businesses and individuals in a very real way. The changes Egan calls for in Inbox Detox certainly don’t seem like rocket science, and you may pass on the book without giving it a chance, thinking you’ve got your email under control. But after reading this book, let me assure you – you don’t.  

Klaus Givskov-Christensen

For more on this book, please visit http://EganEmailSolutions.com/inboxdetox.html

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RescueTime, a company that analyzes computer habits, has found that the average American worker checks 40 Web sites daily, checks e-mail 50 times and uses instant messaging 77 times a day.

Is this YOU?

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