Drugs. Porn. E-mail?
According to executive coach Marsha Egan, it might be time to fight e-mail addiction."There is a crisis in corporate America, but a lot of CEOs don't know it," Egan said. "They haven't figured out how expensive it is."
From wasting time on the company dime to cheapening your quality of life, e-mail addiction is looming over the country like a greedy shadow. While coach Egan is looking at it from the angle of "wasted productivity," I think the personal ramifications are quite large as well.
Ask yourself: How often do I check... how many accounts... how often is my inbox empty... am i checking during movies... what if i added up all the time i'm checking accounts...
Man, I'm in bad shape - and I don't even use a Crackberry. How much is too much?
Next time I have the urge, I'm going to resist. Maybe I'll limit myself to three times a day.
Do y'all think there's anything to "e-mail addiction?"
Andrew G.R.
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I think most folks just check the email too often either because they have a toy to play with (ala the Crackberry), or they just aren't finding what they're doing interesting enough to pay attention. Better to ask yourself why you're not interested in the current task then to simply blame email.
Email as a communication medium is still a fascinating new beast for most people. Is it business or pleasure? Is it like a live conversation, or more like leaving a message for somebody? It's all those things rolled together. Imagine in the days before email if every time you had a thought to share, you called somebody. Well, maybe the person wasn't home. Presto, we have answering machines. Well, maybe you're not near a phone. bingo, cell phones. Aha, but you can't talk on the telephone and talk to another person in the room with you at the same time (at least, not well). Behold email. You can pretend that you're multitasking. Sending and checking email feel like they have no real cost to your attention span, because you can do it while you're doing other things. So while you might realize that it's rude to interrupt somebody in the middle of a conversation and say "Excuse me, I'm gonna go call my friend", you don't think twice about checking the email and telling the person, "No, go ahead, I'm listening..." because you think you actually are.