Frequent Email Interruptions May Lower Your IQ

by Joan Friedlander

Does this sound familiar? You started your day with the best of intentions. You've planned to spend time working on a client project or calling on several warm leads...and hours go by. Suddenly it's noon and you haven't yet done anything you planned to spend time on. What happened? Chances are pretty good that you started your day checking e-mail and before your knew it, hours flew by. Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but not by much. Reading the news from your daily digests, linking to something incredibly interesting and relevant on the Internet and responding to personal e-mails can eat away at your time.

Taming the e-mail gremlin is a frequent topic of discussion when clients are making important changes in how they spend their time. It's especially challenging for my clients who receive frequent direction and requests from their clients via e-mail. It's clear from the following study that careful consideration of how we use e-mail, and the agreements we set up with clients with regard to e-mail instructions, is critical to real productivity.

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"E-mails 'hurt IQ more than pot'"
Friday, April 22, 2005 Posted: 8:08 AM EDT (1208 GMT)

LONDON, England -- CNN.com writes Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows.

The constant interruptions reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic, according to a survey carried out by TNS Research and commissioned by Hewlett Packard.

Wilson said the IQ drop was even more significant in the men who took part in the tests.

"The research suggests that we are in danger of being caught up in a 24-hour 'always on' society," said David Smith of Hewlett Packard.

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Wow, did that get your attention? It certainly got mine. So, what's the draw? Why does e-mail suck you in?

Everyone knows that if you let too much time go by, e-mail (often junk) piles up in your in-box so frequent checking seems like a good way to keep things clean.

It is quite possible that a time-sensitive message awaits you and so you may argue for the importance of checking it first thing in the morning, and several times during the day.

Sometimes emotional needs can be inappropriately filled by your receipt of lots of e-mail. If your sense of popularity or self-esteem gets mistakenly intertwined with the number of e-mails you receive, you would be drawn to check it frequently.

What if your clients have come to expect instant response? I do have clients who get their assignments through e-mail and the level of service they agreed to provide means that they receive assignments daily and throughout the day. This can seem like an acceptable arrangement at first. I recently spoke to a web design client who wanted to set aside longer periods of time to focus on her projects without interruption. She realized that she had completely lost her ability to say no to a couple of her own clients, and that their needs created unpredictability and a compete loss of control over how she spent her time. Quite literally, she couldn't plan her day nor focus on anything for a predictable length of time.

Backtracking when you've already created expectations is harder than setting them in the first place. Fear that people will no longer use your services if you change your policies keeps many from taking corrective action. However, the client I mentioned above was willing to give it a shot because she recognized the cost of not doing so. The following are the questions she answered:

How many times a day would you like to check e-mail and respond to new requests?

Would your preference serve your client(s) needs and also support yours?

Assuming yes, what does your client need so that he or she can get behind the new "rules?"

If no, what else do you need to do so your client is served and get your needs are met?

What new ways of operating do you need to exhibit so your client knows you mean business?

You may be the biggest stumbling block to success. Some times people set up new guidelines, and then fail to model them. Consider this example: I know a couple of people who decided to take Friday's off and let everyone who would be impacted know about their new schedule. All seemed well until they realized that they were either responding to e-mail or sending out unsolicited e-mail when they told people they were not working. Guess what. People started expecting responses on these supposed days off.

The same thing will happen if you don't honor whatever new arrangements you implement with your clients. If you don't follow the guidelines you set, you'll be right back to square one in no time.

What else can you do?

Check your e-mail second thing in the morning. Try this just for a day. If you have an important project to work on, check e-mail second thing in the morning instead of first thing. Then make note of what you missed - if anything - and also make note of the impact on your productivity. Which turned out to be a better use of your time?

Junk mail and personal mail are probably the biggest time wasters. If junk mail represents more than half your e-mail, invest in an e-mail program (such as Microsoft Outlook, part of the Microsoft Office Suite) and use the rules folder to sort your e-mail. In addition, you can use important vs. urgent guidelines to sort e-mail in your in-box. Last year I was president of my local coaching chapter and the e-mail generated by my leadership team could sometimes be overwhelming and distract me from my business priorities. So I created a rule that put their e-mail into a specific folder and I also consciously needed to decide not to read it on certain days.

Set aside a specific amount of time and specific times each day that you will review e-mail - and honor the time you set aside. If you receive newsletters that you want to read, reserve an hour or two a week that you dedicate to doing so. In other words, take responsibility and plan for the time you will give this activity. Additionally, make sure you subscribe only to those e-mail publications that help you and remove yourself from the rest.

Close your e-mail program when you·re doing other things. Period.

Today, I checked e-mail second thing in the morning so I could finish this newsletter. It felt really good! Next, I'm going to work on honoring the time I've set aside to check e-mail, and figure out what I need to ask of my clients in order to do that.

Resources

Some study specifics from www.cnn.com

In 80 clinical trials, Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King's College London University, monitored the IQ of workers throughout the day.
He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points -- the equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.
The survey of 1,100 Britons showed:

• Almost two out three people check their electronic messages out of office hours and when on holiday

• Half of all workers respond to an e-mail within 60 minutes of receiving one

• One in five will break off from a business or social engagement to respond to a message.

• Nine out of 10 people thought colleagues who answered messages during face-to-face meetings were rude, while three out of 10 believed it was not only acceptable, but a sign of diligence and efficiency.

 

by Joan Friedlander, © 2005. All rights reserved.