Checking your email obsessively? It's costing you money, time, and probably sanity

Filed under: Utilities, E-mail, Productivity, Google

Checking your email obsessively? It's costing you money, time, and probably sanity

by Drew Olanoff Jun 16th 2008

Check this out y'all:

A NYT article says that Americans waste $650 BILLION dollars over-checking their email obsessively. BILLION. Not Millions. Not Thousands. BILLIONS. Crazier? We waste $650 BILLION dollars trying to get back into the groove of work after checking our email obsessively.

Why do we do it? Are we that afraid of missing something?

Some of us here can say that we too check our email obsessively. Even going so far as to click on the Gmail logo over and over to refresh the page. Does this sound familiar to you? If so, you're apparently not alone.

How do we stop? How do we combat this problem? Do we love email that much? We hear people complaining all of the time about information and email overload, so maybe we're trying to get a jump on controlling it before it controls us?

Many questions and not a lot of answers, but if these numbers from the NYT are true, oh boy do we have to change some things.

First things first.

Stop. Look, and Listen.

Stop checking your email so often
Look and notice that Gmail already refreshes itself
Listen for emails to come in automatically via POP or IMAP

You won't miss something.

What's your favorite way to catch email? We find that checking email on the mobile slows us down a bit. Unless you get too obsessed with that...can you say Crackberry?

Lets hear your thoughts in the comments.

[via silicon valley insider]

Tags: billions, email, gmail, money, nyt, productivity, time, tweet-this

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

julian said 3:24PM on 6-16-2008

I dont get why this is such a big issue?
set up notifications with mail, thunderbird or outlook?
if you are on the go then that might be harder but really?
also set up gmail notifier if you dont like the previous

now i would like to know how much money Americans waste on reading blogs?

Dan said 5:31PM on 6-16-2008

....... ONE TRILLION DOLLARS... MUAHHAHA...MUAHAHAHAHAHA

edward said 8:28PM on 6-16-2008

I check my email about 4-6 times a day on three different email accounts.

Thats when I am at home.

At work we have to be able to respond to emails within just a few minutes, for things like updates on current project assignments and queries from co-workers about certain issues.

I have been looking for a way for outlook to have BIGGER and LONGER lasting notifications without external software (near impossible where I work).

We use exchange server with outlook.

Michael said 8:51PM on 6-16-2008

This is what Gmail Notifier is for.

Drew Olanoff said 1:23AM on 6-17-2008

Good call!

mmhan said 10:34PM on 6-16-2008

I do use GTalk client, I don't need to check so often.

It's a problem when I tend to visit Gmail and read/delete/archive immediately whenever a new single mail has entered my inbox.

W. Graves said 8:26AM on 6-17-2008

i usually wait to respond to an email for about an hour as to appear not web-obsessed.

dumb i know, but i cant help it.

TurboFool said 12:54PM on 6-17-2008

Do people really do this? I've got Gmail notifier in Firefox on both my computers, i have Digsby on both computers, and I get my Gmail, my two personal domain accounts, and my Exchange mail all on my phone. I have plenty of notifications about new mail and can access it whenever it's convenient. I really wasn't aware this was a serious problem for people. Weird.

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