Our Love/Hate Relationship with Email

Email is the bane of the knowledge worker’s professional existence.

OK, so pardon my grandiose pronouncement, but it’s true, isn’t it? There really is no escaping the love/hate relationship you have with your email inbox. For example:

• Love: Email is a cheap, fast tool for sending and receiving quick replies to/from colleagues.


• Hate: Because you’re in the habit of answering your email right away, you expect others to do the same. In fact, if a coworker hasn’t replied to your message within a half hour, you start to think you’re being ignored.


• Love: Thanks to the ask-a-question, get-an-answer power of email, you can avoid those boring conference calls and unnecessary, time-wasting meetings.


• Hate: Somehow, the conference calls and meetings aren’t slowing down -- and neither is your email.


• Love: If you’re not a phone person, email is a more comfortable communications mode for getting some of your transactional work done.


• Hate: Because you didn’t pick up the phone when you fired off that emotional email to your client, your tone was misinterpreted and you just lost a major corporate account -- as well as your job.


• Love: Your BlackBerry delivers your email to you anywhere, anytime!


• Hate: Your BlackBerry delivers your email to you anywhere, anytime!

There really is no escaping email -- we need it to do our jobs. But when we allow our inbox to manage us instead of the other way around, email becomes a terrible burden.

So what’s the solution?  How about email-free Fridays? Several companies are starting to adopt the concept as a way to encourage actual face-to-face interaction and to reduce the level of unnecessary email.  If you think an email-free workday is a great idea, make sure you vote in this week’s Monster poll (bottom of page).

Now I wonder who I should ask at Monster about putting the policy into place at our workplace?

What are your best practices for managing email?  Drop them in the comments section below. 

Here are a few of our resources on the topic:

• "Don’t Let Email Steal Your Time" 
• From the Monster Blog: "Five Workplace Email Etiquette Commandments"
  
• From the Monster Blog: "Email or Face-to-Face"

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