Most Workers Addicted To Email: 2 Out of 3 U.S. and U.K. Workers Check Email Outside Business Hours
By Anna Johnson on September 15th, 2010Recent research confirms what many of us already know: the average worker is addicted to email and customarily checks their work email outside of business hours.
According to research by Harris Interactive for Xobni (which makes tools for Microsoft Outlook), 72 percent or Americans and 68 percent of British workers check their email whilst on vacation, when taking time off, on the weekend, and/or on other non-work days.
American workers are even more dedicated – or addicted (depending on how you look at it) – with nearly half (42 percent) of those who check email outside of business hours doing so when they are home sick compared to 25.8 percent of their British counterparts.
What’s more, fully half of American workers who check work email outside business hours do so whilst on vacation or when taking time off work, compared with 29 percent of U.K. workers.
Unfortunately, the decision not to check work email during holidays carries a cost for British workers. While a quarter (26 percent) of Americans who check their work email whilst on vacation return to work believing they get too many emails or are overwhelmed by the volume of emails upon returning to work, a massive 86 percent of Brits feel that way.
So what is driving this compulsion to check email outside working hours?
According to the study, American and British workers feel it’s necessary for their jobs.
More than a quarter of Americans (27 percent) and a fifth of British employees (20 percent) check email outside of business hours because they feel they are expected to provide quick responses. On top of this, 37 percent of Americans and 45 percent of Brits are afraid not to check their email because they might miss something important, and 43 percent of Americans do so in order to ease their workload.
Assuming that constantly checking work email outside of business hours is bad… what do we do about it?
For its part, Xobni offers a tool that promises to increase your productivity and efficiency when using email. Apparently, the average Xobni user saves 45-60 minutes per week by using its product.
Depending on the email client or service you use, you can also set up ‘out of office’ autoresponder messages and/or calendar reminders to let people know when you’re away and when you’re due to return. Ideally, this dissuades people from sending through more email. Of course, this often doesn’t work, since people figure they’ll send you an email anyway so you can deal with it on your return!
Here’s my tip for breaking the cycle of constantly checking work email outside business hours: just stop!
Take a good, hard look at your life and ask yourself, seriously, how you want to spend your time. Everything has a price. Constantly checking email has a price… leaving it until you return to the office has a price. But which price is worth paying? What is really important?
What are you going to regret if you, or one of your loved ones, gets hit by a train tomorrow? That you didn’t check your email… or that you didn’t spend time having fun with people you love?
By the way, the reference to a train (as opposed to a bus) is no mistake. Last year, right here in Melbourne, a woman was literally killed by a train… that she was rushing to catch. That’s right, it was in the morning and she was rushing to catch a train so she could get to work on time. How ironic… and tragic.
So ask yourself: is it really essential to fire off a few emails while you’re at home… or can they wait until you return to work?
And how important is to send those emails anyway? Having spent enough time working in corporate environments myself, I’m convinced that way too much of most people’s time is spent on things that really don’t matter. On things that don’t help them get work done, that don’t help them personally, and that don’t even help the business.
Whether it’s to avoid non-productive meetings, office politics, trivial administrative tasks, multi-tasking or any one of a dozen other time-wasting activities, most people would be MUCH more productive if they wisely planned and managed their time and didn’t let anyone or anything derail them.
And, by being so much more productive, they wouldn’t have to constantly check their work email at home.
Ultimately, however, it comes down to how much people value their time and themselves. Too many people seem to place greater value on doing work – even unproductive work – than pursuing their personal interests, enjoying time with family and friends, and even looking after their health.
Okay, so what if you’re in business for yourself? If you’re building a startup, for example, you’re likely to be working around the clock on your business. So of course you’re going to check your email after hours, right?
The difference is, hopefully, that you’re doing something you enjoy and are either living – or working towards – a lifestyle where you have freedom and choice about how you spend your time.
That’s the idea, anyway. But, perhaps more than corporate workers, startup entrepreneurs need to be careful not to get sucked into a lifestyle where they feel trapped by their businesses and feel compelled to work all the time. Personally, I think checking and responding to email 24/7 is a huge trap for Internet marketers… and telling yourself that you’re having fun (when you’re not) is no excuse.
Again, it’s a matter of asking yourself how you want to live your life NOW – as well as later, when you’ve made your millions (!) – and which price of the various options available you are willing to pay.
