A 2008 Workplace Productivity Survey (pdf), commissioned by LexisNexis reports that:
more than seven in ten American white collar workers feel inundated with information at their workplace, while more than two in five feel that they are headed for an information “breaking point.” The survey of 650 white collar and knowledge workers found that employees across virtually every industry are affected by information overload, but that the problem is particularly acute in the legal profession – with almost eight in ten legal professionals saying they are increasingly overloaded with information.
The findings show that a large majority of legal professionals believe that a legal research tool designed for their specific area of practice is important, that this should integrate into workflow, and that it should provides analysis and expertise. Goodness! That’s LexisNexis, isn’t it?
But I’ll just home in on one staggering finding: on average, the legal professionals surveyed say they handle 36.7 incoming work-related emails daily, with 22 per cent reporting that they receive 50 or more in a typical day and 6 per cent saying they receive 100 or more. Now, I know that lawyers are busy people, but shame on you! You don’t need a legal research tool or technology to sort it out; you just need a bit of personal email management.
I claim no expertise whatsoever in this field other than my own personal experience and would be interested in some feedback. So, here’s a test for you:
(1) How many work-related emails do you receive in a day?
(2) Now deduct email in the following categories:
- Spam. I like to think that spam was not included in the figures, but work-related spam is something that’s likely to get through the spam filters. I don’t have an answer for it, but it doesn’t take long to put it in the trash can.
- Illegit marketing. Close, but not quite the same as spam. Perpetrators are based abroad or don’t pay heed to the EU marketing directive. Unsubscribe if you can; otherwise deal with as spam.
- Legit marketing. You bought something from them sometime and forgot to uncheck that box. Unsubscribe.
- Email alerts/updates. Have you not heard of RSS? Unsubscribe and pop their feed into your reader. What? They don’t provide a feed?
- cc-itis. I’m guessing that this is a big culprit and something that is endemic in some organisations. How many of your work-related emails are unnecessary copies of emails sent to others, because the sender either lazily replies to all or simply wants to cover their back? Tell them not to do it.
(3) So, if you took the steps above, how many work-related emails would you receive? That’s (1) minus (2).
(Hat tip: Slaw)
Hi Nick, interesting point you make. So are you saying that you do not think email communications are important and that finding an effective way to centrally manage and retain email as business records is also unimportant? I work in a corporate legal department where email is considered a critical application. Without it our work grinds to a halt. Each attorney is working with hundreds of emails daily. Email (and associated attachments) is used to send and receive legal opinions, court documents, patent applications, contracts and other legal documents. A lot of those communications are with our outside counsel and with joint venture partners. It takes much, much more than personal email management to take care of the email chains that this generates. Effectively these are business records and knowledge that need to be captured. Technology and a shared electronic repository to help deal with this volume of electronic correspondence and work product is not only a high priority but it is in fact essential to us.
Linda, my point is that there’s a lot that can be done to reduce unwanted email via personal email management and company culture/policy. I agree that technology is essential to manage the wanted and sift out the remaining unwanted.