I know I always complain about the amount of email I get—and I’m just a stay-at-home dad who blogs, not somebody who actually has an office job. I’ve never sat down to quantify it, though. Contatta sent me this infographic, though, which breaks it down for you. (Of course, they’re trying to get you to buy into their “collaborative email” service, but it’s a frightening picture nonetheless.) My advice: adopt the Email Charter!
Now, if they could only calculate the staggering cost of Candy Crush and Angry Birds… actually, I don’t think I want to know.
Of course if I cut my email time by 15% I’d like just spent 15% more time on Geek Dad. LOL.
Well, that would be time well spent, right? 🙂
Surely some of the time on emails is adding value, conducting business, making progress. Email is much easier to manage, how much time is spent on pointless phonecalls, meetings etc
Well, I don’t think all time on email is pointless—however, I’ve spent more than enough time in the past few years just sorting through unnecessary emails because people still insist on using “reply all” rather than just to the relevant people, or wading through interminable threads in reverse order when somebody loops me in on an existing conversation.
Sometimes when you need a quick, direct answer, a phonecall could be much quicker. (Of course, then there’s the exchange of pleasantries, but if you could cut to the chase then that would eliminate the wasted time.)
I won’t defend meetings at all. Thankfully I’m not in the workforce and haven’t had to deal with many of those.