A few months ago, I was in a meeting with an elder-law attorney in private practice who had only recently given into e-mail. He wasn’t much older than me, but he had resisted as long as he possibly could giving in to the e-mail demon. We had a nice chat about what the role of e-mail is in the business world. We both had rather different opinions…
I maintained that I get much more done via e-mail than I did ten years ago. I said that all that time I used to waste on the telephone, leaving messages, typing out memos and distributing them, holding meetings—all those things that I had been able to at least partially replace with e-mail—had made my work days much more productive.
His argument was that e-mail wastes more time than it saves. He said that he thinks people get distracted and lost in their e-mail—wondering who’s sending them what and reading personal e-mails on company time. He is of the opinion that e-mail sucks time out of a productive day and keeps people from being able to focus on “real work.”
Well, I think it depends on the type of work a person does. In my world, e-mail is an amazing life saver. I’m able to do work for clients and companies all over—not just in my own little community or city—and I’m able to get a lot done in a relatively short frame of time. But, there is some truth to my opponent’s view point too. I can get sucked into e-mail and distracted by the borage of constant incoming messages, spend time checking my e-mail and responding, etc. when I could be doing more focused, non-e-mail projects.
Regardless, I’d like to revisit the chat with him in a year or two—to see if he gets as attached and used to e-mail as some of the rest of us have. And, I’m not afraid to go on record as saying that I LOVE e-mail. How about you? Does e-mail suck the productivity out of your work day or make your business possible?