On your list of things to accomplish this month, productivity “expert” Marsha Egan wants you to add one more: clean out your e-mail box.
Eagan, chief executive officer of The Egan Group Inc, has declared Jan. 28-Feb. 1 as “Clean Out Your Inbox Week. She suggest that the average e-mail interruption costs each American worker four minutes of lost time. If a worker receives an average of 15 e-mail interruptions per day, that’s one hour of time lost to e-mail interruptions.
If that worker is part of a 20-person department, that’s 20 hours of work time lost per day. And if the employees average $20 per hour, that’s a loss of worker productivity that amounts to $400 per day or $2,000 per week.
This e-mail is a call to action for me. I’m cleaning out my e-mail box immediately, starting with any e-mail that arrives from my editor.
If I’m going to lose an hour a day of productivity it’s going to be lost to idly surfing the Internet and NOT answering e-mails that only pile on more work.
So, thank you Marsha Egan, productivity “expert.” Now whenever anything flies unexpectedly into my e-mail box I’m slamming the “delete” key immediately.
Jim Stafford
Business News Writer