Beware - email

If you are reading this post from an email - then I am sorry, I didn't mean to disturb. But since you are already concentrating on this, then keep on reading.

What was I doing just now?

The Sidney Morning Herald paper has published the conclusions of a research that was done in the UK, among which it was discovered that it takes roughly 64 seconds on average for someone to get back to what he was doing before a new email has popped into his inbox.

So how much time do we spend on emails?

The meaning of this is that for people who check their inbox every 5 minutes, will waste more than 8 hours a week wondering what they were doing seconds before they got an email... Think about it - 20% of the time spent at work is spent on thinking "hell, what was I doing a minute ago?". If you add to this another minute of reading and replying to emails, you get more than 50% wasted on moving into and from your inbox.

How much time does it take to reply to a message?

It was also discovered that although emails are thought to be non disturbing (especially compared to the annoying messengers), people tend to reply to emails 1 minute and 44 seconds, on average, after a new email was received.

What can we do about it?

One very simple thing is not to have an icon displayed (and of course not to have anything popping up) when an email has arrived. This small thing can lead into the ability to work without the interference of emails, at least not when you are concentrating on a specific task.

But what can we do about phone calls, SMS, messenger and calling my name in the hallway?

Maybe I will have a second post on this, depends on how much I get disturbed...