Time isn’t there to be managed: it’s there to be invested.
The average Office Worker (let’s call him/her ‘Sam’) checks their emails 37 times an hour.
The most alarming thing about this statistic for mine is not that Sam is checking emails once every
1 and a half minutes (give or take) all day every day, but as this statistic is an ‘average’ there are
clearly a hell of a lot of other people checking their emails more than 37 times an hour.
Most likely, Sam and Co are leaving their email alert on all day while they ‘focus’ on other work.
And then, every time they receive an email it flashes on their screen, or ‘pings’ or vibrates or all of
the above. So, Sam jumps in and checks each new email because Sam is addicted to emails.
Bottom line, Sam and Co are distracted 100% of their day and it is not working for them.
The constant flicking between task and email and task and email and task and email and back
again forces Sam’s brain to multi-task, and when Sam multi-tasks, Sam’s productivity drops by up
to 40%. That’s the equivalent of losing a night’s sleep.
At best, Sam is only ever working to 60% of Sam’s productivity.
Sam, give your brain a break. Check your emails 3-4 times a day in scheduled Batches of 30-40 minutes. Between each Batch turn your email alerts off and get some real work done.
