A new study has come out that reveals that people who respond to emails immediately are not just being polite - it is most likely that they are stressed and overwhelmed by their email. The study carried out by the University of Glasgow said email users come in three categories - relaxed, driven, or stressed. The relaxed people don't let email dominate their lives and take time to concentrate on work without regularly checking their emails. The driven group keep on top of email, but also felt that they could cope with it. The third group, however, reacted negatively to the pressure of email.
Like anyone reading things like this I tried to categorize myself and concluded that I am a 'driven' person who is trying to become more 'relaxed'. My work requires that I write a lot and I find email really distracting when I am trying to focus on an article or press release. I find it hard to recover my train of thought and often get dragged off to complete a 'more urgent' task.
Also, I think my colleagues think of me as rude if I don't respond to them immediately. Indeed I have been chivvied by some for not getting back to them when I have seen the request as not urgent.
Interestingly as the linked article points out " another study, carried out last year, revealed that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email. This means that people who check their email every five minutes waste a whole working day - or 8.5 hours a week - figuring out what they were doing moments before."
It's not unusual for me to receive up to 800 emails a day. The majority of those are inter-company communications. The volume of email is a regular subject of discussion here at Peppercom and we do try to think of ways of reducing it.
I have decided to stop checking my emails so regularly in the hope of becoming more productive. So if I don't get back to you straight away don't be offended!
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