R U an Addict?
by Paul Gossen
Email has replaced Starbucks as the number one white-collar addiction
H
ow many times per day do you check your email? In the world today, we check our email an average of 23 times per day, debilitating our ability to think clearly and be focused. Email has become the default communications channel of the 21st century. It is a quick way to stay in touch with lots of people and solves the problem of voicemail tag. However, there is a growing awareness of the dark side of email. In a recent Symantec survey of email users in Europe, 74 percent of people said they think email is addictive and 21 percent admitted to being email dependent – compulsively checking their email and panicking when they can’t. Constant email users suffer a 10point drop in IQ scores, more than twice the drop recorded by heavy marijuana users. This clinical trial by HP and the University of London, involving more than a thousand participants, found that email addicts developed an inability to distinguish between trivial and important messages. Twenty percent of participants consistently jeopardized important relationships by “checking their messages” in the middle of a conversation. Consider that email addiction is killing your ability to think clearly and be present with important people in your life. Constantly checking your email is a great way to stay busy. If you check your email more than five times a day,
consider that you may be addicted to email. The problem with constantly checking your email is that you train people to believe you are instantly available via email. You then have to check your email constantly in order to appear responsive. Unfortunately, constantly checking your email usually has very little to do with producing results and getting what you want in life. Email cannot transmit a speaking tone. Speaking tone is how humans relate to other humans and connect with community. Tone is how humans communicate emotion and a powerful conversation always has an emotional element. You cannot create relationship nor have real conversations concerning accountability without tone. As you read or write text, you imagine or assume an emotional tone into the text. From email arguments to billion dollar cost overruns to real wars, assuming the emo-
tional state of another person or group is always at the heart of every conflict. If you spend more than two hours per day in email land, you may be attempting to substitute email for real conversations. Writing is slow. Explaining your point of view or justifying a decision via email requires you to compose text. Wanting to look good requires that the text be well edited. Producing results requires real, open communication, the kind of connection that happens in face-to-face or telephone conversations. According to a 2007 study published in Psychology Today, telephone communication has four times the success rate of email communication. What do you want out of life? What changes would you like to see in the world? Are you really willing to give all that up to service your email habits? Building healthy email habits is actually very easy.
The email rehab program Tell the truth: What are your email patterns? How much time do you spend per day in email land? What is the cost of email addiction on your ability to think clearly and be present to important people in your life? Acknowledge the impact on others: If you are really committed to altering you relationship with email, “fessing up” with others on the cost of your habit will give you the power and support to change. Response time: Rescind your promise to be instantly available via email. Negotiate a more realistic email response time with your key people, such as a same-day promise. No urgent email: Set up agreements not to use email for urgent communications or for matters best discussed in person or on the phone. Action required: Immediately mark or separate “For Your Info” from “Action Required” email. Deal with your “For Your Info” email all at once at a later time. Time block email: Schedule two or three time blocks (15-45 minutes long) to check email and respond to “Action Required” email. Think before responding: Anything that can’t be completed in your set email time, estimate how long it will take and see where it will fit into your schedule. Stay strong: Only check your email during your email time. The trick to breaking an addiction is to displace the bad habit with a good habit. If you catch yourself checking email, stop. Pick up the phone: Email is the perfect tool to schedule powerful telephone or face-to-face conversations. Remember the telephone is four times as effective at achieving real communication. Use email – don’t let email use you: Change the default settings in your email program to check for new mail once an hour instead of every few minutes. Try unplugging your email and see how much more focused you become. Adapted from the book Business Transformed by Paul Gossen. His oneday program Productivity Transformed includes a fresh new relationship with email. Program date: Vancouver:March 26. 604-872-4300. An End Email Addiction PDF eBook is available from www.BusinessTransformed.com
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