
True cost of email: We only get 1h 12min/day of uninterrupted productive time - jorymackay
https://blog.rescuetime.com/communication-multitasking/
======
outsideoflife
Don't blame the email

1) Before email I had more letters and phone calls

2) If you disrupt your flow to answer emails and that is not mandated by your
manager, that is your fault.

3) If you disrupt your flow to answer emails because your manager insists,
then that is your managers fault.

I personally don't even notice emails arrive while I am _in the zone_. I
answer them in batches once free.

~~~
SatvikBeri
It's pretty much entirely a matter of cultural expectation. At one job I'd get
criticized for being "unavailable" because I took more than an hour to answer
emails. Another job polled everyone (in tech) to find out when we did and
didn't want meetings, and ended up with no meeting mornings (because people
preferred multiple mornings to a few full days.) Guess where I got more work
done?

~~~
Consultant32452
I cultivate the idea that you've got a 50/50 chance of successfully reaching
me via email. There's 3 people whose emails go into a special folder I monitor
regularly. Everyone else goes into the regular folders that gets skimmed once
or twice a week. About once a day someone pings me on im to ask me to actually
read an email they sent and then I do. It saves a ton of time.

~~~
dorkwood
I’ve always treated email more like a news feed than a to-do list. To me,
stressing out over unread emails is like stressing out over “unread forum
posts” or “unread news stories”. Does every email really deserve my attention?

------
sixstringtheory
I check my email once or twice a day, and try to keep slack completely shut
down for the majority of the middle of my day (I kinda treat it like a more
engaged or rapid-response email). I’ve found success keeping certain chunks of
time marked as busy on a shared calendar. I try to shift conversation away
from email and slack into calls when it looks like a problem needs to be
solved, and then go back to email to archive the findings. I commit to a 24
hour max turnaround on all communications outside of weekends and vacation.
People have my phone number and so far it has not been abused to get around my
expectations; there would be an immediate rebuke if that were to happen.

I can’t help but think that if people advocated more for what they need, and
politely, respectfully, but firmly set out expectations for how they work, a
lot of managers would get on board. As in, “this is the way it is, let’s find
a way to make it work.” Those that do not should be quit as soon as possible;
they’re less interested in managing, moreso in man-handling, and I just don’t
have the time or energy to care about those politics.

This is probably why I work independently, granted I don’t work in HA
environments. I also think this partially explains ageism: in general it’s
just easier to control young new grads who have no comparative experience,
especially when you throw huge salaries at them and make them believe they owe
you everything for it.

Apparently I had some things to get off my chest :)

------
zenpaul
My personal policy is NO email on the phone and no Slack/group-chat alerts on
the phone either. Anyone who matters has my number and can call or text me at
any time. That puts the interrupt driven work of filtering out the 99% of non-
emergency information on them, where it should be. The only exception to this
is if I'm explicitly on call for something specific, but I try to minimize
that time.

For email I always filter ALL automatically generated emails (JIRA updates,
etc.) to a folder which I generally ignore. Then when I get to the computer to
deal with mail I go through everything (from real people) at once a few times
during the day. I leave nothing unread or unresponded to, even if it's letting
them know it will be dealt with tomorrow.

Seems to keep everybody happy and productive, most importantly myself.

------
robotkdick
I found this article by Paul graham...

[http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)

...to be more instructive as it identifies a critical division between two
types of "knowledge workers" that the above article overlooks.

A "maker" by the very definition needs to be productive all day :)

A "manager" can be productive even while distracted, and perhaps that's a
natural state to be for managers.

~~~
candu
More accurately: the manager isn't, strictly speaking, being "distracted" \-
the meetings and other such "interruptions" are a _core part of their job_.

This was something I never properly appreciated before becoming a consultant.
As you become more and more responsible for managerial tasks - direction,
product / technical vision, coordination, scheduling / estimates, recruiting /
hiring / onboarding, "selling" the product internally / externally, developing
robust processes around common tasks, etc. - you need to appreciate that
communication is, properly wielded, an incredible time-saver.

Some of my most productive days have been ones where I didn't touch a line of
code; instead, I helped clearly define the problem at hand, or helped onboard
a fantastic new hire. These are the sorts of days that save you somewhere
between weeks and years of time, depending on the importance of the problems /
decisions involved.

Conversely, I find many engineers are limited in their careers by a blind
focus on "productivity" \- forgetting that it's often not about superhuman
individual effort, but rather about sustained, intelligent, and proactive team
effort. (Not to mention that "seat time", "working hours", etc. slowly become
proxy metrics for "productivity", thus ensuring burnout, mistakes, and wasted
effort.)

~~~
jimnotgym
> Some of my most productive days have been ones where I didn't touch a line
> of code;

My most productive days ever were the ones where I drove over to another site
to find out the problems they were having and then designed my tech around it.
They weren't used to being consulted and helped. Their manager is now a big
advocate for my changes, now I have a bigger budget and more staff. All from
taking time out.

------
juandazapata
If nobody is forcing you to answer emails in real time, then this is
completely your fault. Personally, I just check the email at the morning
before I start working and 1 hour before I end my day. Works like a charm.

~~~
edgarvaldes
I check email when I arrive in the morning, before and after launch, and
before leaving the workplace. Those are the moments I am "off the zone"
anyway. It's a good balance for me and I never miss anything important.

~~~
jimnotgym
Indeed. I will add to that, when I do allocate email time I answer carefully,
don't fob people off and make sure everyone does get an answer. That is better
customer service than a person who gives snap replies just to be fast

------
svnsets
At the company I work for, email is only really used for the executive and HR
teams to send mass communications to employees. Almost all communication
between employees is done through Slack under the assumption that
communication through messaging is asynchronous (meaning I or anyone else may
see that I/we have been messaged, but can defer my/our response until it's
convenient. This sort of communication model is important because it doesn't
alienate our remote employees, and it doesn't derail the workflows of
engineers/designers/managers/etc.

Anyways, I don't think it's appropriate to blame email in general for people's
poor task management skills. The alternative to email and instant messaging is
having someone physically walk over to your desk or call you in which case
your current task is definitely going to be derailed.

------
segmondy
Rubbish, email is the least disruptive tech out there. It doesn't force you to
do anything. You can actually ignore it. It's the same rubbish we see with
folks blaming internet/social media/notifications for not doing work. Solution
is easy. Ignore them and focus! Schedule time for deep work.

------
stingraycharles
RescueTime user here, so most likely my usage is part of this sample. It’s
absolutely shocking to me how much time I spend on Slack and email. On a day I
felt productive, it’s usually between 2h and 3h of software development, and
about 2h of slack.

If you would ask me, I would have said 15-30 minutes. But it’s expected
nowadays to be constantly available to answer questions.

Other than conditioning people that you’re not responding quickly, I don’t
have a good solution for this. Especially when the alternative is that you’re
being called all the time, which is even more distracting.

~~~
overcast
Don't forget the 3h you spend on HN.

------
cup-of-tea
Email doesn't actively break flow. It's up to you to respond to it or even to
check it in the first place.

I find that I can switch between work and text communication very well. But
any type of verbal communication will certainly break my flow. So I'm glad we
have email and IRC instead of phone calls.

------
mc32
One of my previous managers was a stickler for prompt email responses (read in
real-time). It was irksome. I’m very happy to see others recognizing the
detriment of the passive aggressive behavior in the guise of productivity is
in practice a way for poor managers to “excersise their will” on their
reports. And ironically it leads to loss of productivity.

~~~
walshemj
I have had to tell coworkers(usually younger ones) that I don't always read my
email when it comes in - if its really important pick up the phone.

If I am heads down working on a problem I might look at email when I get in at
8:45 but not look at again until after lunch.

------
jjrh
My method is to turn off my mail clients 'auto pull'/notification
functionality and manually pull my mail.

I also don't use email on my phone.

Basically the idea is I'm reserving a chunk of time (I usually do first thing
in the morning and at the end of the work day) to read and respond
thoughtfully.

The biggest thing really is just turning off those notifications that by
design are to distract you.

This won't work for everyone - specifically operations people, or folks who
work in a environment where people use email effectively as chat or it's
expected you reply quickly. Intelligent use of filters (only notify when the
boss mails you) might be a solution.

I read this same story come up with chat constantly. Adapt/modify your tools
to make them work for you.

------
Mc_Big_G
The true cost of email is nothing compared to the true cost of slack.

~~~
emodendroket
Yeah, the headline is kind of burying the lede... the argument is much more
compelling if we're talking about IM.

------
bg4
If it's not my phone beeping, new slack notifications, it's outlook popping up
with meeting reminders, it's the application focus being ripped away from me
by something else, it's time to update some random software on my computer,
phone is ringing, someone is at my desk, and LinkedIn letting me know someone
I haven't talked to in 15 years got a new job. Also, email.

~~~
overcast
That's why disable / delete / close all that crap. Notifications are the death
of productivity, and life.

------
hyperpape
What exactly does the 1h 12min number represent? Is it the average longest
uninterrupted period a worker has? The sum of multiple periods that meet some
threshold? The phrasing sounds like the latter, but if so, what is the
threshold for productive time that is uninterrupted?

------
archi42
At some point I just decided that, to me, email is an asynchronous medium and
I tread it as such. Which means, I will eventually read and answer mail - and
by using clever filters staying at zero inbox -, but worst case that's in the
morning after coming in (and while checking for failed build reports), or
before leaving. Usually I switch tasks once every few hours or a cloud build
takes a while, so that's some more opportunity for a quick look.

Similarly, setting my private mobile to DnD for practically the whole day was
an enormous boost for my concentration (and sanity). I sometimes check it
while skipping a track, but that's enough.

Only drawback as of yet: It often takes me an hour to realize a long running
cloud build I queued failed.

------
duskhen
Many people here mention the culture as important factor, and suggest using
other higher barrier communication means. Funny thing is that as a manager I
am trying to push for emails instead of drop by’s in person, as emails at
least give me the freedom to choose when to process them in batches (and leave
a trace in my memory). And it seems that in my culture (Russia) personal drop
by’s have the least barrier, immediately followed by the IMs, while Email has
the highest barrier.

------
waynecochran
Ironically, in the middle of reading about email being a distraction, the site
brings up a popup offers me a weekly email about time saving tips.

------
arrty88
I can't tell you how many hrs i waste scrolling through different slack
channels to mark them as "read".

~~~
cmg
If you're not using hyperbole here, you should know that you can use Shift +
Escape to mark all messages as read across channels & DMs. Source:
[https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201374536-Slack-
key...](https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201374536-Slack-keyboard-
shortcuts)

------
twoquestions
This jives with my experience. At least in large enterprises, they'd rather
interrupt you constantly to gauge productivity than leave someone alone to
work, even if the latter plan has better results. Consistent (even bad) output
is better than inconsistent output, even if your average productivity is much
higher.

------
erikb
This was never true in any of the jobs I worked. You can mostly modify your
email programs to be unannoying about notifications and if you really focus on
a task you simply don't see the emails for 2-4 hours. I have also never
received an email that required immediate reaction. So...

------
spking
This is discussed in great detail by Cal Newport:

[http://calnewport.com/blog/2016/03/22/the-case-against-
email...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2016/03/22/the-case-against-email-
strengthens/)

------
upofadown
The article mulches email/slack/IM together in a particularly unhelpful way...

~~~
aangjie
Ah.. that seems like a reasonable grouping of all communications..

------
Myrmornis
I recommend trying Google Inbox if you haven’t yet. It doesn’t interfere with
Gmail, you can use them both. The batch archiving and pinning features are the
big ones for me, but others like snoozing.

------
slim
Mail servers should be required to queue emails for 12h before distributing
them. Mail is not IM. Maybe I should write an RFC... Or use mixmaster as my
SMTP server

~~~
LinuxBender
An RFC would be interesting, but I am not sure it would be adopted. You might
start with a gist on github with the configuration settings required to do
this in postfix, qmail, sendmail, powermta, etc. It might help to give the
page a shiny logo and a trendy name. If there is enough interest, perhaps even
register a domain with a catchy name. What would be a good name for it?

~~~
slim
slowmail.org

~~~
LinuxBender
I like it! I might just modify my postfix servers to queue up mail for a while
before processing. I like your idea.

~~~
slim
Glad to hear that :) we might start a movement

------
gerbilly
Ha ha.

You guys really tie yourselves up in knots.

When I get back from vacation I automatically delete all my unread emails.

If there is something important, they'll let you know, believe me.

------
everdev
Title is kinda funny: 1hr12min. I'd that the longest stretch? What if I get 5
20min (pomodoro) stretches per day? Still seems productive.

~~~
lastres0rt
Congratulations on not reading the article. It's an average.

------
anonuser123456
"Look, you gave me this hammer and that means I need to be pounding nails 8
hrs per day. We need to re-invent the hammer."

------
amelius
We basically have a TV sitting on our desktop with personalized content in
multiple channels.

And we complain about email hampering productivity?

------
coldtea
Wait till the author also learns about Slack...

------
skate22
You can have my email, just dont take my slack \giphys

------
emodendroket
Well, stop checking your e-mail so often, then.

------
hisforehead
Perhaps hire more secretaries.

------
yosito
s/email/hacker news

------
svnsets
tldr; it's email's fault that I can't manage my OCD and time during working
hours. I mean, same. I can't get work done because video games and reddit
exist. It's their fault ;)

------
minimaxir
...how did this get 13 points in 3 minutes without hitting the vote ring
detector?

~~~
1123581321
I’m not in YC. I’ve been a happy user of RescueTime for almost ten years and
they post interesting stats sometimes. It’s like how OKCupid articles get
hundreds of upvotes, on a smaller scale.

~~~
minimaxir
It's less about the number of upvotes, but more about the _rate_. Not even
product announcements from Apple/Google/Facebook et al. get tens of upvotes
immediately after they are posted.

~~~
1123581321
I honestly don’t know what’s normal. Back when I posted stuff that got
upvotes, I’d expect to see 10 in the first hour on a successful submission.
This was in 2011 so there may have more traffic now. Or it may have been
brigades by fellow YC. Is that a normal pattern for workaday YC blogs? Some
statistics would be helpful if anyone tracks vote rates by domain.

