Hasta La Ideas

I ran across an image yesterday on 43folders that I wanted to share with you:

If you check your e-mail every 5 minutes when you’re at work, then you are checking it 12 times an hour. Multiply 12 times an hour by 8 hours a work day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (assuming you aren’t checking your e-mail while you’re on your two weeks of vacation) and this is how Merlin determined the 24,000 total.

If you’re checking your e-mail 24,000 times a year, what are you sacrificing? What are you not working on during that time? Could you reduce your rate to every 15 minutes (a yearly total of 8,000) and be more productive with other aspects of your job? Could you reduce it to once an hour (2,000)? Three times a day (750)?

How often are you checking e-mail currently? If you don’t know, track your productivity to see how you’re really spending your time at work.

How can you break an e-mail addiction? Start by turning off your notification indicator and setting an alarm for every 15 minutes. Only check your e-mail when the alarm indicates you do so. Every client I’ve worked with has found that they will not face any trouble at work if they only check e-mail on a 15-minute or 30-minute schedule. Most come to find that once an hour is sufficient, but it takes awhile for them to build up confidence to make this change. I try to check my e-mail fewer than 5 times a day (some days I’m more successful than others).

What will you do with your newly discovered time? Simply taking the time to plan your perfect day will help you manage your time more wisely.