In the past, I have blogged about research by experimental psychologists into multi-tasking and how people tend to think they are better at it than they actually are.  A major driver of multi-tasking in the workplace is often e-mail,  and this was recently highlighted  in an article entitled “E-mail is making you stupid.” 

Most of us work in environments where we receive scores if not hundreds of e-mails and instant messages  each day. While much of the information they contain is often of marginal relevance and  almost never  critical to what we are trying to accomplish at the moment, the frequent re-direction of attention (and attendant loss of focus on the task at hand ) is quite costly in terms of productivity. Some large organizations estimate that they lose up to $1 billion annually  in productivity because of this. There is also a tendency for some workers to become so accustomed to checking their e-mail and instant messages very frequently that they become anxious when they try to cut back.

Some remedies include eliminating alerts that announce new messages, only checking e-mail a handful of times each day at regular intervals, and using either face-to-face communications or phone calls more frequently. The latter also frequently has the benefit of building closer relationships with colleagues and clients which often brings additional value to the organization.

Reid Klion