Email: nothing more than an interruption?

James Adonis - Brisbane Times - 4 May 2018

My greatest pet hate in the office is the Reply All button, used by colleagues indiscriminately for matters barely relevant to even one of the recipients, let alone all of them. The worst offender is the person who replies all just to say “thanks”. No capitalisation. No full stop. Just a single word, almost always directed to a solitary individual but with everyone else unnecessarily copied in. Granted, their intentions are usually good, and I’m no doubt being petty and difficult, but still, it’s my truth.

Maybe you can relate. If so, it’s probably because you’re aware employees send and receive an average of 122 emails a day and that almost a third of our time is spent doing nothing but managing the darn things. So any additional email, particularly if it serves no purpose at all, is an unwelcome interruption that disrupts productivity and concentration. Read more