Comments on Travels in a Mathematical World Blog: Oh, email

For closure, final count for email sent and receiv...

2012-02-17T11:01:36.067Z

For closure, final count for email sent and received in 2011 (not including spam, etc.): 23,440.

Mean: 65 per day.

23,440 minutes is about 391 hours. Assuming a 7.5 hour working day (haha), this is just over 52 days. There were 260 weekdays in 2011. This maintains the figure of around a quarter of my time processing email (allowing for holiday and sick leave; assuming an average of 1 minute to read or write each email).

That's an interesting take on being copied int...

2011-10-30T12:55:16.580Z

That's an interesting take on being copied into things that don't directly concern me. I tend to think "if this were all done by phone or meeting I would have just been told a summary rather than being sent the whole thing". Perhaps I should learn to value the extra info I'm picking up that way.

Point taken about workload!

I think it's normal. And not necessarily a pro...

2011-10-30T11:57:12.622Z

I think it's normal. And not necessarily a problem. Much of my work is done by email that would otherwise be done on the phone or in face-to-face meetings. I think email is for many things more efficient. It can generate discussions which are not really worth the effort, but then so do other forms of interaction, and often the emails I don't really need to send or receive are the ones that take very little time. I am also copied into things that don't directly concern me, but which provide an efficient way for me to keep in touch with what is going on.

It is a problem if the volume of email is interfering with one;s ability to deal with one's workload. That may just be a symptom that the workload is too great!