Christa Wagner

I saw a great posting on a colleagues blog (www.declutteryou.com) regarding email addiction and some recent information collected by AOL.  Now, I am not shy about the fact that email is the one thing that really bogs me down and when you look at this stats; its no wonder.  I do my best to only check email at certain times each day and try to have fewer than 10 emails in my inbox at anytime.  But I struggle knowing there are actions sitting in my inbox waiting for my attention.   I am not going to run through the details; you can check them out yourself the Seattle Addiction page.

That said, a couple of interesting things I noticed:

• We are always encouraging our clients to have more balance between life and work, but yet 43% of people read their email in the bathroom; technology has invaded the most private of moments.
• 27% say they feel obligated to check work email while on a break from the office and one in five plan their vacations based on where they know they can access email.
• 35% check their email in the middle of the night.

So I certainly don’t expect email to go away, and I don’t want it to.  It is a great way to stay in touch, share information, communicate to groups, etc.  But what I would love is for people spend a little less time emailing and a little more time doing something that adds value to your life.  To quote Randy Pausch of The Last Lecture, ”Time is all you have.”  Is email really the best way to use it.   What could you be doing rather than emailing?  Give it some thought and let us know.