CHART OF THE DAY: All email, all the time
SteveSo I have a theory about this week, the week leading up to the long Labor Day weekend in the USA, and the unofficial end of summer. After Labor Day the kids are all back to school, vacations have pretty much all been taken, and all of a sudden you realize that there are still 18 big unfinished items on your 'Things I wanted to get done in 2015' list.
So this week is it, the last 'fun' week more or less, before the end of year holidays kick in. So have fun. And don't expect too much out your humble correspondent this week either. I want to enjoy the end of summer too.
Full disclosure: I did not want to blog about email AGAIN. Even I am sick of it. And it kind of doesn't matter anyway. But over the weekend I (once again) received at least a dozen or so work-related emails, none that I would classify as urgent, and by the end of Sunday night I couldn't help but have email (again) on the brain.
Please stop emailing people on the weekend. Really. I am begging you.
Anyway, here is the Chart of the Day, I almost forgot that was the point of the post. According to some recent data spotted on Business Insider it seems like for most folks email is either an obsession, or something you don't care much about at all.
Let's take a look at the data, then some FREE comments from me after the chart:
What to make of this data - where the vast majority of people either are on email all day long or just once or twice a day?
1. It should be really, really easy to figure out what kind of person (a check all day or a check once a day type) you are dealing with after one of two email exchanges. From the data we see that from the wide divergence in how often people like to deal with email making any kind of assumption about expected email responsiveness is probably a bad idea.
2. People who check email all day long every day often cannot understand and have little patience for folks who fall on the other end of the spectrum. Think about your own preferences and usage of email. If you are constantly on your email all day long just how frustrated do you get with people who do not share your email obsession/enthusiasm.
3. This isn't an email-specific take, and really doesn't have anything at all to do with the chart, but I wanted to share that I finally came to my senses and turned off just about all visible and audible notifications in my phone. The only time my phone now 'pings' me is when I am getting a call or a text. No more email notifications, no more 'someone mentioned you on Twitter' alert, no more 'breaking news' type messages. It is remarkable how much better and I hope healthier I feel about my relationship with my phone.
Ok, that's it, I am out. It is still summer after all.
Have a great week!
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Others who check their email constantly throughout the day are generally impatient with and intolerant of those who don't. Consider how you now use email and what features you find most helpful. How upset are you with folks who don't share your email fixation if you check it repeatedly throughout the day?