Messages - 14 Years Later

I was cleaning out a resource file recently and came across an article from 1997 that was based on a workplace study by the Gallup Organization and the Institute for the Future. The study found that employees received an average of 190 messages a day, most requiring some form of response.

The general breakdown of those messages was: Paper-based 79; Telephone 52; E-mail 30; Voicemail 22; and Pager / cell phone 7. (Paper-based included InterOffice Mail, USPS Mail, fax, phone message slips, Post-it Notes, courier, and Express Mail.)

My reaction was, “Wow! Technology sure has changed the workplace. Has it only been 14 years? That 1997 workplace now seems eons ago.” Many clients today tell me that they typically get between 100 and 150 e-mail messages a day, and they feel stressed by that deluge. Granted, the total number of messages may not have increased too much because of a decrease in paper-based and phone-based messages, but that change from paper-based and oral to e-mail has a significant impact on your time.

E-mail’s Impact

E-mail suffers from the lack of oral and visual cues. Whereas oral communications (phone, face-to-face, etc.) are not “etched in stone”, e-mail is "in writing" and that means you need to carefully draft your response to minimize misinterpretation. Also, your message may be around for quite a while in somebody’s e-mail archive folder, and you have no control over who may ultimately read it after you click the “Send” button.

To summarize, e-mail responses require the same care given a formal memo despite the appearance of an informal communication. That means they usually take more time than the traditional oral (phone / face-to-face) communications!

Interruptions

A related worker comment from the 1997 study jumped out of the article – workers complained about the number of interruptions caused by the incoming messages. That has not changed in 14 years! When we discuss “What keeps you from being effective?” in our time management classes, interruptions (e-mail, drop-ins, and phone) are among the very first responses. Interruptions, no matter what the source, will each cost you 5 to 20 minutes of Mental Recovery Time – that’s the time to get your brain back to where it was before the interruption occurred.

For workers today that use Outlook as their e-mail program and get 100 to 150 e-mail messages a day, they suffer from having 100 to 150 avoidable interruptions a day from the messages arriving in their Inbox / Mail Folder! Outlook’s default settings for the arrival of new e-mail messages generate a sound and a New Mail Desktop Alert (pop-up that fades while you frantically try to read it).

If you live with those e-mail sounds and pop-ups, you’ll have a difficult time doing anything during your day except working with your e-mail. In that case, you can start your “real work” either after everyone leaves the office or after you get home in the evening.

Get Organized Now…or Agonize Later!

You CAN get control of when you check your Inbox. Do it when YOU want to, NOT every time a new message arrives. You’ll be amazed at how much your stress drops and how much time you’ll save by avoiding the steady flow of e-mail interruptions.

Our Working Sm@rt with Microsoft Outlook workshop shows how to apply “best practice” time management techniques using the basic and advanced functionality of MS Outlook. As part of re-configuring Outlook to make it more user-friendly, participants change the default settings to eliminate all of the audio and visual (pop-up) interruptions caused by arriving e-mail messages. You can turn them off, too. It’s pretty simple:

For Outlook 2003 and 2007

Click on Tools, and then click on Options. 

Click the E-mail Options button.

In the E-mail Options box, click on the Advanced E-mail Options button.

In the center of the Advanced E-mail Options box, uncheck all four of the small checkboxes.

Click OK, then OK, and then OK again to close the various Options boxes.

For Outlook 2010

Click on the File tab, and then click on Options on the list on the left side.

In the Outlook Options screen, click on Mail (near the top of the list on the left side).

Under the heading “Message arrival”, uncheck the four small checkboxes.

Click OK.

Once you get over the feeling of insecurity from not having all of the e-mail pop-ups and / or sounds, you’ll realize how much stress and unnecessary Mental Recovery Time they caused. Let me know how this technique works for you, or any other comments or questions you have about getting organized.