Death by Multitasking

There’s a grassroots email revolution afoot.

When working on a tight deadline, there is one thing that we can all do without: interruptions. With roughly 39.7 billion person-to person emails sent daily, the time spent replying to the deluge of emails is threatening to drown productivity in offices across Canada and the US. Workers are spending more time sending and receiving emails than they are working on projects.

To help eliminate interruption and distractions, and to help workers focus on a single task at a time, CEOs of large and small companies alike are helping their employees meet deadlines by declaring one day a week email-free.

It may seem old-fashioned, but encouraging employees to talk face to face and to focus on one task at a time is a newer concept in today’s multi-tasking, wired-in workforce. Employers are hoping that by encouraging workers to spend more time face to face with fellow employees there will be a better exchange of ideas and more effective problem solving.

What Students Can Learn from the Email Revolution:

1. You don’t have to be doing 5 things at once to be busy
2. Shut off text messaging, MSN, and Facebook while working on a project
3. Don’t use email to as a tool for procrastination
4. Focus on a single task at a time for a period of time
5. When working on a deadline, the less distractions the better