Email consumes half the workday

According to a recent Fast Company article, employees estimate that they spend spend about 4 hours a day (half a workday) managing multiple “inboxes.”

It’s clear that social media has made a huge impact on our personal lives but do we notice how much it affects our work habits?

The experts at Fast Company explain that:

The study suggests that social media on platforms such as Facebook have “shattered the divide between business and personal use” and often encourage such intermingling further exacerbating this issue.

While the revolution age has been seen as beneficial for some people, it can add a lot of stress for others. The other biggest concern with spending so much time on social media and email, is the loss in productivity. The constant interruption of email after email and the “ding” of a new message on your computer can easily take you away from your priorities.

Not only does this affect your productivity and stress but staying organized and on top of what you need to do is impossible. Juggling multiple email inboxes, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin along with the normal day to day work even sounds too hard to do!

But how do we stay in touch, organized and on top of things without doing all this…

1. Block off time for email – try blocking off 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon for email. Get it all out of the way at that time so you don’t have to worry about it for a while. After that, turn off notifications so you aren’t bothered again until you are free to read them again.
2. Turn off your internet – if you can…. I know some of you can’t but if you can turn off your internet or even your computer to get some stuff done, do it! You’ll get it done faster and then you’ll have more time to surf the web and check your emails.
3. Try something like Rypple –  The constant emailing back and forth and searching through archived emails can stop, and needs to stop. Using the spreadsheet that Rypple provides you, you can keep track of all actions and tasks in one place!