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Re: Two minutes?
@Broadway - exactly. It's completely counter-productive. Sadly, the IS Manager of our group promotes this kind of distraction by requiring us to respond within minutes to emails from her and certain other groups.
I can't ever really focus fully on a task - because I always need to be on alert for an email either at my computer or on my phone. I do have some "alerts" set up through Outlook to help parse out what I need to pay attention to but that doesn't help me when I'm on the floor using my mobile. I don't really think this a great way to work, but it's not my show, so...
I can't ever really focus fully on a task - because I always need to be on alert for an email either at my computer or on my phone. I do have some "alerts" set up through Outlook to help parse out what I need to pay attention to but that doesn't help me when I'm on the floor using my mobile. I don't really think this a great way to work, but it's not my show, so...
Re: Two minutes?
@Broadway0474- I'm with you. Depending on the task, it can be a longer derailment than the time it takes to look at the email. You have to get back into the mindset and restore certain things into short term memory.
Re: Two minutes?
vnewman, there is some crazy research on the problem of interruptions in the workplace --- something along the lines of it taking on average 40+ minutes (or something ridiculous) to resume a task after an interruption. According to that, it sounds like you never get back to the task at hand!
Re: Two minutes?
@David - I'm like Pavlov's dogs when I hear a new email ding. I can't help myself. I must look. The suspense kills me. I must know what it says. Maybe it's lifechanging. Maybe my life will be better if I read THAT email.
And most times, I must answer immediately. I must get that off my list of things to do. But all that does is give me MORE to do because until that email is answered, there's a brief work stoppage. Replies beget replies thus creating more work!
And most times, I must answer immediately. I must get that off my list of things to do. But all that does is give me MORE to do because until that email is answered, there's a brief work stoppage. Replies beget replies thus creating more work!
Re: Two minutes?
@Broadway - Agree, agree, agree. Much of it is CYA purposes - sad isn't? Like in Office Space. "My only motivation is not to get harrassed."
Documentation can redeem onself (or not).
Documentation can redeem onself (or not).
My more than 47 words reply
Having a real email client open 24/7? Yes, I do and it is set to get emails off the various servers every 15 minutes. I do not have a cell phone and I rarely give out my phone number, email is the best and most preferred way to get in contact with me. Response time varies depending on who sends me a message. Some I can and need to reply right away, but most sit there for a few days and plenty of messages do not end in a response. If there is no request for comment I do not see why I should give my 2 cents. That is my reason why a good chunk of emails are left unresponded to. Another reason is that I often get several emails from the same person. I tend to respond to all those messages in one response, but not if it is for business because there it does not help merging threads. If I want to boil an egg I get up and do that. I reserve the right to be not available for hours. Put that in your pipe you smartphone hogging folks!
Short responses...yes, but it depends who I am conversing with. I know of SMS, but SMS is by far more expensive than email and there are no free SMS services for desktop. See above, I refuse to spend hundreds each month on a data plan for a smartphone, too expensive of a toy. I do appreciate and typically add a proper thank you and address, but especially at work with mile long email threads I think we can do without it. We all know that we each appreciate the others contributions, but there are better ways to express that than a reply to all "Thanks! Have a great weekend!"....especially when it is early on a Thursday! Cutting out the niceties is not a matter of disrespect and lack of appreciation, it just keeps the email volume down. As nice as a 'thank you' is there is no additional information conveyed by it. If you think I did a great job send a note to my boss.
Most of my responses are more 47k words long. I constantly get dinged for not being concise enough. Others who email me are very concise and I constantly have to email them back to give me more details and above all context. Maybe it is just because I am old? Nah! It is because I know that others have gazillion things going on and it would be rather obnoxious to assume that they know what I am talking about when I write "I disagree with 2.1, it should be moved to its own dialog or be its own tab." So I add more context, but often get a response "Agreed!". Great that you agree with me, but to what? The dialog or the tab proposal? Being concise is fine as long as the response still contains information rather than just data.
Kids are smart, email has so many benefits that are not matched by any other communication platform. And you can attach or (although I hate it) embed content other than text. Try that with SMS or tweets.
Email will be around and do well for a long time. It is easy to use, very versatile, very easy to index and search, very simple to pass on to others, easy to archive, and above all accessible from almost any platform and dirt cheap.
Short responses...yes, but it depends who I am conversing with. I know of SMS, but SMS is by far more expensive than email and there are no free SMS services for desktop. See above, I refuse to spend hundreds each month on a data plan for a smartphone, too expensive of a toy. I do appreciate and typically add a proper thank you and address, but especially at work with mile long email threads I think we can do without it. We all know that we each appreciate the others contributions, but there are better ways to express that than a reply to all "Thanks! Have a great weekend!"....especially when it is early on a Thursday! Cutting out the niceties is not a matter of disrespect and lack of appreciation, it just keeps the email volume down. As nice as a 'thank you' is there is no additional information conveyed by it. If you think I did a great job send a note to my boss.
Most of my responses are more 47k words long. I constantly get dinged for not being concise enough. Others who email me are very concise and I constantly have to email them back to give me more details and above all context. Maybe it is just because I am old? Nah! It is because I know that others have gazillion things going on and it would be rather obnoxious to assume that they know what I am talking about when I write "I disagree with 2.1, it should be moved to its own dialog or be its own tab." So I add more context, but often get a response "Agreed!". Great that you agree with me, but to what? The dialog or the tab proposal? Being concise is fine as long as the response still contains information rather than just data.
Kids are smart, email has so many benefits that are not matched by any other communication platform. And you can attach or (although I hate it) embed content other than text. Try that with SMS or tweets.
Email will be around and do well for a long time. It is easy to use, very versatile, very easy to index and search, very simple to pass on to others, easy to archive, and above all accessible from almost any platform and dirt cheap.
Re: 5 Words?
All in all this is an interesting article. It just clicked my mind that, these are the tasks that we do on a day to day basis. However I am surprised with the numbers.
5 Words?
5 words reply, this is unbelievable. In my experience I used to receive paragraphs and paragraphs as a reply.
Re: Two minutes?
@whoopty I agree with you. We used configure email in to our phone for easy access. By the way what will happen if you receive an urgent email?
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User Rank: Ninja
4/24/2015 | 12:22:03 PM
I kind of get the two minute reply. When you are waiting on a response for something that leaves you stuck until you get the information from the other person, you're checking email constantly until it comes up. But it almost sounds like the new relationship obsession of always being in contact with the other person.