Back to: Communicating by email or letter

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If you’ve ever sent an email to the wrong person or hit “reply all” by accident, this story might make you feel better. It happened in 2008, when a Philadelphia lawyer wanted to inform a colleague about a proposed lawsuit settlement involving an international pharmaceutical company. She typed her colleague’s name in the “send” line and didn’t notice that she accidentally clicked to add another recipient – a New York Times reporter. Only days later, the paper published a front-page story about the proposed billion-dollar settlement, and the lawyer lost all professional credibility.

The dominance of email in business communications means we all have stories of embarrassing blunders. Another burden of this tool is the overwhelming obligation of answering our inbox. But, love it or hate it, the adoption of email as a way to communicate in business has forever reshaped how we do our jobs. In one generation, sending and receiving information went from a slow, uncertain process to lightning fast. It is estimated that today, people send 100 billion business-related emails a day. That number is expected to rise to 130 billion in the next few years. And it’s all happened in just a couple of decades. Very few people used email regularly only 20 years ago.

At that time, many Internet users had dial-up access, which was very costly. All the way into the 1990s, instant replies were not the norm, and faxes were considered a more reliable way to send information to business contacts. That changed in the early 2000s, when email at the office all of a sudden became ubiquitous. In 2003 came the Blackberry. Although it wasn’t the first phone that allowed access to email, its portability and ease of operation led professionals to check email and answer messages almost immediately, even on their time off. Very quickly, email drastically changed the way nearly every professional works. Suddenly, people became obsessive about checking inboxes, spending hours sending and receiving messages and worrying over the undefined rules of email etiquette.

It’s hard to quantify just how much more efficient the world has become thanks to email, both in sending information and in basic communication such as setting up a meeting or an introduction. But with email now on smartphones and even smart watches, it has also become a burden to many, a tool that means never disconnecting from work. The problem is that many of us can’t stop ourselves from checking email, even if our employer doesn’t require or encourage 24-7 responses. We simply can’t get away from it — and not just because our work won’t allow it. Email is addictive, triggering the same areas in our brain as drugs. That’s because people can get a feeling of satisfaction when they’re getting something done by answering email. In reality, this is a false sense of accomplishment. For the most part, email doesn’t appear anywhere on our job descriptions. Unless you work in online customer service, your job performance will likely never be defined by how many emails you send a day.

Email is more manageable for those who respond less often. If you answer emails right away, you train your co-workers into thinking that you’re always available. This creates expectations and generates pressure on yourself. Also consider how you write and send email. You can lessen the burden by writing concisely, using bullet points and simple language. A typical conversation on email includes seven messages. Making the initial message effective means fewer follow-ups. If you are dealing with a complex matter, picking up the phone and speaking with your recipient may be a lot more effective than typing yet another email reply.

Though overflowing email inboxes can create stress and distraction, of course there is no arguing that it has fundamentally changed many industries for the better.