Face to Face is Best

Don’t you just hate it when you are in the middle of something and “bing” someone sends you an email. Not another interruption! But of course you just “have to” see what that bing was and you stop what you were doing to read the message. It has been said that on average we check our email an average of 37 times an hour. That’s more than once every On the other hand we typically spend only six seconds on each email.

Email hits your productivity. If you don’t manage your email, you are less able to work effectively. Research consistently shows that email is one of the biggest hits on your time and on your ability to concentrate on the work you need to do.

A study published last year confirms that the break in continuity of work due to email can affect your productivity and can actually act as constant source of disturbance.

This all suggests that we are so supremely social and that we need social stimulus to keep us going. Therefore when it comes to the office being interrupted by constant emails you become less productive than being interrupted by your work mates. Rather then getting people to send you an internal email you will do better at your job if you ask them to come over to your desk and talk to you.

There are also additional benefits in taking this kind of approach. Not only does it boost the ability to get on with the job, it also helps staff feel happier because they are now in much more real, face-to-face contact with each other. Plus there are health benefits of the increased wandering around the office, perhaps leading to fewer days off sick.

If you want to boost your personal and business productivity, the best thing you can do is to start managing your email, switching it off for most of the day, moving around and actually speaking with people directly, even your co-workers.