2019-06-11 11:21:03
By Ben Morris Business reporter, BBC News
Andrew Crosby has 7,000 emails in his inbox. To some that might not sound like
many, but he's only been at Relaxing Gaming for a year, so there's not been
much time for the inbox to get out of control.
As a senior executive at the software company, which has eight offices around
Europe, he fields around 140 emails a day.
"You have to pick and choose what you think is going to be relevant to
yourself... you can get cc'ed into so many emails that are nothing to do with
yourself whatsoever," he says.
And there's the key problem with email. The message that might contain the
single most important thing you need to know all year, could well disappear
into the landfill that is your inbox.
Email malaise
It's not just inefficient, it's also bad for your health.
"Email overload is causing people to get ill," says Cary Cooper, organisational
psychology professor at Manchester University.
His research has found that higher email load is associated with higher
workload stress.
"The problem is there aren't good guidelines on what is the best use of email
and the things we should not do," he says.
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"We cc in everybody rather than just the one or two people we should be
interacting with. Line managers should never send emails outside of office
hours to their subordinates unless it's absolutely essential.
"There's no point in sending someone an email on a Friday night saying you
don't have to deal with this until Monday, because people will then worry about
it and do it that weekend."
But he is not saying that email should be eliminated altogether.
"It's a great way to keep in touch with people, particularly who are remote.
It's a great way to send data, to send information. By itself it's fine - it's
the way people are using it is the problem," says Prof Cooper.
Enforced breaks
France has tried to improve the situation. In 2017, a law was introduced that
obliged firms to come up with a plan to ensure staff get a break from office
emails. In August 2018, the French arm of Britain's Rentokil Initial was ruled
to have broken that law and was ordered to pay an employee 60,000 ( 53,000).
No such rules exist here in the UK, but some firms have taken action anyway.
Platypus Digital is a marketing agency which runs fundraising campaigns for
charities. From the very start, in 2014, its founders banned internal emails
and any staff who forget have to donate 5 to charity.
"We'd all worked in charities and companies that had been around a lot longer
and experienced that internal email overload, where the majority of your day is
trawling through internal updates that you don't need to be a part of," says
managing director Matt Collins.
Instead, the company's seven employees use a messaging service and documents
software from Google, and a project management system from Asana.
"We decided to use tools that were much more effective and much more fun," Mr
Collins adds.
Inbox zero
But what if you work in a much larger organisation, where you have to use email
to get anything done?
Clare Godson is an executive director at law firm Aosphere in New York. Six
months ago she decided to try "inbox zero" and has been "evangelical" about it
ever since. The idea is to manage your inbox strictly, ideally not having
anything there at all.
There's lots of advice about how to do it on the internet, but broadly you have
to do something with every email you receive.
"It's completely revolutionised the way I feel about my email," she says. "I
never have that feeling any more that there's something lurking in there that
I've forgotten to deal with.
"It's massively satisfying as a way of working, it just makes me feel more
efficient and I think I feel lighter mentally."
She accepts that for many people it's a big hurdle.
"Most people are incredulous that you could possibly get there. They think you
must be constantly in your inbox checking, deleting and sorting, which isn't
true."
People also think she can't be that busy, which she also rejects: "The busier
you are, the more you need to be rigorous and organised."
Slack attack
Let's face it, for most office workers, inbox zero is never going to happen.
Whoever who can solve this communication problem "will be the most important
software company in the world". That's according to Slack, a US company which
sells a service that allows staff to message each other and co-operate on
projects.
Its founders, frustrated with email, launched Slack in 2014 and, according to
the firm, more than 600,000 organisations use the service.
On Slack, communications are based on groups of users rather than individual
inboxes. Despite losing $420m in three years, it plans to list on the stock
market later this month.
Andrew Crosby of Relaxing Gaming uses Slack and likes it, although it has not
stopped him accumulating 7,000 emails in his inbox.
Other firms are also trying to exploit frustration with emails, including
Microsoft, which Slack identifies as its biggest rival. Microsoft Teams was
launched in 2017 and the company says that more than 500,000 firms use the
service.
Facebook also offers a collaboration tool called Workplace.
The secret?
While many people rave about such services, they don't appear to be a complete
replacement for email. It is still the best way to communicate with people
outside your organisation.
The trick, according to Mr Collins, is to be strict about how you use it. He
attaches a document to all his emails explaining his personal policy, which
warns correspondents that his emails will be brief and, unless they are a
current client, they should not expect a quick reply.
He says lots of people read his personal policy and like it. And it seems to be
working. When I speak to him he has just 20 emails in his inbox. If all this
seems a bit too much effort, then perhaps you should consider inbox infinity.
The idea is to let the emails pile up, embrace the chaos and thus liberate
yourself from the guilt and anxiety. Just make sure you don't miss the message
from the boss about your pay rise.