Comments on: Company collapses: CEO forgot to check email last night!

By: Ian Stanley

Ian Stanley — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:38:06 +0000

Nope unless your dog is delivering the mail that you can’t send by email ;)

By: Jackie H.

Jackie H. — Wed, 10 May 2006 21:12:14 +0000

Oh, how I see my former workaholic self in this article. A great read and hopefully a wake up call to others who chose to give away their precious private home time.

By: watercooler

watercooler — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 21:28:27 +0000

First off, I think it’s kind of sad we have made ourselves “always available” for work like this. I’ve got a bad situation – I work evenings over the weekends – and from home. I’ve got to the point where I *can* just do a quick scan to see if that emergency email comes in, but it’s bad because I’m always on the computer, so I am 1/10 of the way to being at work at least 10 hours a day, every day.

Definately not healthy – I need an outdoor hobby…

By: Tina P

Tina P — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 12:18:58 +0000

To Bren regarding inappropriate email subjects: If you’re having difficulty with people’s email subjects, try initiating a new ‘subject convention’ within your organization or team where the first word of the subject specifically marks what is needed. Start changing your email subjects to look like ACTION: Next Week’s Visitors / FYI: Bob’s on Vacation / MEETING: Next Week’s Visitors / QUESTION: The Bigman Project / ANSWER: The Bigman Project. Once it catches on, it can be especially helpful for those times you sort by subject.

By: Bren

Bren — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 09:08:02 +0000

I find it very hard to draw the line between “scanning” and “processing”. 1: Other staff have a way of not wording subject lines appropriately and you may find that the action required inside the email does not match the subject. 2: After scanning and making a mental-note of what action is required this stays in your subconcious mind until processing. Myself, if I can do an action immediately I’ll do it then, rather than having it bugging me for the rest of the night.

By: Itzy Sabo

Itzy Sabo — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 17:33:32 +0000

Ed, I think it’s more useful to ask “is that healthy?”

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 17:22:10 +0000

I’m infected as well.
I will stop dead in my tracks and return to my PC as soon as I hear a new message come in.
When I’m out I get a text message on my cell phone for any new email of interest (based on filters).

Combined, I can usually be aware of an email within the hour 24 hours a day.

Is that normal?

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 02:17:46 +0000

Really, this is a disease: I have to check my email every ten minutes because I’m addicted to the sound Outlook makes when I receive a message. I become depressed when there are no messages. Fortunately, there’s always spam to cheer up my day.

By: cyesi23

cyesi23 — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 22:25:51 +0000

I now receive around 150 emails a day. I’m sure there will be some saying that I’m let off lightly. But as Joseph implies a good half of these really don’t need to come to me. It’s people thinking they are covering their arses, or copying me because they think it will influence a decision or somebody else. If we went back to the written or typed memo you can guarantee these communications would not have been sent. I have refused a Blackberry on a number of occasions. Do I really want to be picking up emails when at the restaurant or on the train? These are the only times we have away from work now “working from home” is no longer another way of saying “I’m gonna chill out / go to footballl / stay in bed with the girlfriend and come back on Monday with a page of scribbles that took me half an hour ot complete”

By: Itzy Sabo

Itzy Sabo — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:55:33 +0000

Agreed. Discipline is one of the keys to efficient use of email, and unfortunately it’s quite rare.

By: Joseph R. Jones

Joseph R. Jones — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:46:51 +0000

It is absolutely critical to me to maintain a hard edge between “scanning” and “processing” in this way– I would completely lose sanity if I didn’t. :) When I’m not “working” I’m very disciplined about not digging into things that can wait until the next business morning (and 99.9% of things CAN wait until the next business morning.)

The nature of my job is such that I have to do the processing… but if I weren’t, I wouldn’t. If you’re in the same boat as me, draw the same hard line, and don’t fall off the wagon.

By: Itzy Sabo

Itzy Sabo — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:24:09 +0000

Joseph, that’s a very valid point. It didn’t work well for me — I found myself getting sucked in to work mode too easily, and often an hour or two passed before I finished what started as a “quick peek”. And even when it was just a quick peek — the context-switching while at home was not healthy.

When I stopped checking email late at night, I realized there would be a price to pay, and occasionally there was a screw-up that I could have caught in time, if I had been constantly checking my email. In my specific case, I reluctantly accepted that the cost/benefit equation actually favored not checking email late at night. It was difficult getting used to the fact that things could run without me for a few hours, but that was the truth. In exceptional cases when something was really urgent, people reached me using the phone.

By: Joseph R. Jones

Joseph R. Jones — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:45:11 +0000

Sadly, less than 1% of the emails that I receive actually DO fit the category of “super-critical-must-be-dealt-with-now-or-else,” but because that number is greater than zero, I do have to check email in the manner you describe to make sure that none of these exist in my inbox.

However, this is just email scanning– looking through the subject lines for critical items that require your immediate attention. It’s a completely separate task from actually *processing* my inbox, which is something I do a couple times a day on weekdays.

When scanning, if it isn’t super-critical-needs-immediate-attention-or-else, leave it as unread, and deal with it the next time you’re actually processing. Even if you have 200 messages in your inbox, scanning shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.

Just because you have a job that requires you to do regular email scanning during off hours doesn’t mean you have to PROCESS email during off hours.

By: jimbo

jimbo — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:23:06 +0000

My dog would be of help only if I worked at a tennis ball testing facility.

By: Itzy Sabo

Itzy Sabo — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:13:07 +0000

> So… does this mean I should keep checking those work emails at home….

Only if your dog helps you :-)

By: Graeme Watson

Graeme Watson — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:30:18 +0000

“Your employer uses modern technology to encourage you to stay umbilically connected to work when you’re at home. Does you employer encourage you to bring your family to work with you? Or to chat with them all day via IM?”

I brought my dog to work the other day, and one of staff brings his girlfriend along to help with overflow of tasks, a colleagues daughter has spent so much time in our office growing up she could sell most of products and services.

So… does this mean I should keep checking those work emails at home….