28% of work week on email
August 3rd, 2012 GTD Times Team - Staff ContributorsCategories | Getting Things Done | Inspiration
A report from the McKinsey Global Institute says that interaction workers spend 28% of their work week reading and answering email. Your response may be, “No way—only 28%?” Or you may say, “Wow, that seems like a lot.”
The study suggests that using social technologies could improve productivity significantly. But companies will realize that benefit only after they’ve changed their structure, processes, and culture. That’s quite a challenge, since social technologies are considered by many to reduce, rather than enhance, productivity. But times and technologies are changing rapidly. The productivity uses of new technologies are not always apparent in the first few years.
Shouldn’t that be “in email”? “on email” implies email is a specific action category, when it is simply a medium for doing many things, including aspects of project management, etc., etc. The important thing is how much productivity is going on, and as I think the post intends to convey that it’s not so much, which I think is pretty common. Thanks for the interesting post.
Bob — good point. We could have said “in email,” or”working on email” instead of just “on email.” Now that you mention it, maybe it should be “under email,” to convey the feeling that many knowledge workers seem to have about their relationship with email.
GTD Times Editorial Team