Is Email the Next Big Danger to Efficiency?

I got back from Paris on Wednesday night. On Thursday, I was up at 5:20 a.m., care of the generous jet lag. By 7:54 a.m., I’d gone through the 221 e-mails I labeled “post-Paris follow up.” In that time, I had anticipated writing at least two stories and outlining one more — this one, as a matter of fact, being among them.

But what turned out happening is exactly as I described — I just checked e-mails. Were they urgent? Some, but not all. Was it absolutely mandatory that I tend to every single one immediately upon waking up the morning after an 8-day work trip? Probably not. And yet, I felt a strange obligation to deal with them immediately. Before anything else. Including the product that Man Repeller extols — our content.

So I ask: has e-mail become the next big danger to efficiency?

You should know that by 12:45 p.m., three hours after I had arrived at my office, I was still checking e-mails. I could have spent the entire day habitually tab-surfing on my browser, using the inbox messages being transported my way as a sort of reprieve from doing what I actually needed to do. I have done that before.

But it is a harsh and sad reality when your means of procrastination becomes deploying e-mails about payment follow-ups. Because procrastination is supposed to be an indulgence! The mythical moments you spend surfing Net-a-Porter, or eating even though you’re not hungry. Scrolling through Instagram. Sending emojis to your mom.

This makes me wonder what is happening to our joie de vivre. If e-mail is work, and yet we’re using it to escape from working, don’t we realize that we’re using work to counter work and possibly setting ourselves up for burnout?

It occurred to me when I last sent a “Hi! Sorry for the delay in reply!” e-mail after it had only been an hour since receipt that something bad is happening. I understand that the way in which we interact with e-mail has changed considerably since it first launched. Back in the early aughts, you could check e-mail once a week. You could lie to people and tell them the message never came through. It may not have been a lie! But today? Today e-mail is the less abrasive phone call, only there’s no busy dial-tone if you’re already on and you can — nay, must — access it from wherever you are. Even if that means 15,000 feet above ground.

Recently, I heard that an editor at an otherwise publication only checks her e-mail twice a day. I found that brilliant. I want to try it. I never feel as satisfied as when I can’t access my e-mail and that’s primarily because I can actually use the time to do work. Or to talk to the people sitting before me. So I’m going to try it. But before I do, I’d really like to hear that you empathize — or at least sympathize with what I’m saying here. We’re doomed, aren’t we?

Background to feature illustration by Joseph Amar.

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