Break bad email habits at work

London: It is an impressive feat that work email has managed to reign supreme as the most prolific and favoured communication tool in today’s digital working world, despite the emergence of arguably more functional alternatives like Slack, Yammer and MS Teams. Many academic studies have found that there is a certain addictive, habitual component to […]

London: It is an impressive feat that work email has managed to reign supreme as the most prolific and favoured communication tool in today’s digital working world, despite the emergence of arguably more functional alternatives like Slack, Yammer and MS Teams.

Many academic studies have found that there is a certain addictive, habitual component to our use of work email that might be difficult for us to change.A study of an international UK-based charity revealed that email was making many of their employees feel stressed. Despite making a significant investment into alternatives to try to curb the heavy reliance on work email, many staff were still overusing it – such as sending messages to colleagues sitting nearby, using it for general chit-chat, or out of office hours.

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A work habit should only be defined as good or bad, in relation, to whether it helps or hinders someone from fulfilling their tasks and goals, and how it affects their well-being.
A person in a customer-serving role, responding immediately to email notifications can be a good habit as they achieve their central objective of being responsive and helpful to customers. But for a scientist or a writer, the same habit could be detrimental as it might distract them from concentrating on complex work for long periods.
Some 127 employees at the charity were given tips to change this habit. For all participants, their email habits and work goals were noted before, during and after the programme.

Tips included a suggestion to turn off work-email alerts, especially when doing something that demanded a lot of concentration, and to only manually check their inbox every 30-40 minutes.Results showed that workers who changed their habits enjoyed an improved sense of well-being and their perceived ability to achieve work goals increased.