True cost of email: We only get 1h 12min/day of uninterrupted productive time

Funny: When I forced people to call me by not being on IM, I got far fewer calls than I did IM's. And I doubt people were getting 5-20 letters per day every day.

The lower the barrier to communication, the more the communication. Phone presents a higher barrier.

>If you disrupt your flow to answer emails and that is not mandated by your manager, that is your fault. If you disrupt your flow to answer emails because your manager insists, then that is your managers fault.

I have worked, and know many who have, under managers who will keep flip flopping between the two as it suits them. They will berate you for wasting time on emails, but then they'll penalize you during reviews because customers/peers send in feedback that you are unavailable.

I try not to leave it unambiguous. I make sure I ask during interviews: If I check emails 3 times a day and am by default not on IM, is that a problem? I don't mind in-person or phone interruptions, because they are always far fewer. To give you an idea, I have a coworker who sits a few cubicles away from me, and to him it's a pain to drop by my cube when he has questions. Gives you an idea how low the barrier is to using IM whenever something pops in your head.

If you have OCD about answering your email, inbox zero, etc, it's your own fault.

I blame the unspoken expectations that come with email. Email is, in my experience, a political problem rather than a productivity bug.

Requests for support on active bugs comes through email. Your manager will request features, or ask questions about your code and status, through email. Coworkers on different teams collaborate through email.

To not answer these emails immediately probably would not lead to readily apparent punishment, nor would my manager say “he insisted” I respond that quickly, but other coworkers who prioritize these active issues, are ultimately more visible, promote faster, and get bigger bonuses.

By choosing not to play the email game, in many cases, you won’t be punished, but you won’t be rewarded either.

Way less than the number of work emails people get -- and mostly addressed to specific departments and roles. A mainframe developer in 1970 would not get 30 letters and phone calls per day.

>2) If you disrupt your flow to answer emails and that is not mandated by your manager, that is your fault.

You'd be surprised.

>3) If you disrupt your flow to answer emails because your manager insists, then that is your managers fault.

Which, even though a fact, is no relief.

And it's funny the only issue talked here is emails.

I'm surrounded by people replying to their Slack/Whatsapp/Messenger/Instagram/Telegram messages all day, basically interrupting anything anytime they receive a notification on their phone.

The duration of uninterrupted productive time is probably more like 10 min than 1h 12 min for a lot of people.

What I will often do is batch email. Works. Until whatever it is reaches some critical point. Often nothing does.

SMS, or a call works then.

If those happen too much, I trigger a what is worth what discussion. Perhaps my point of focus needs to wait. And it can. No worries, but for the expectations associated with it will need to be managed along with that wait.

There is a cost to everything. Communicating that cost helps with this stuff. Can help very considerably.

This was something I never properly appreciated before becoming a consultant. As you become more and more responsible for managerial tasks - direction, product / technical vision, coordination, scheduling / estimates, recruiting / hiring / onboarding, "selling" the product internally / externally, developing robust processes around common tasks, etc. - you need to appreciate that communication is, properly wielded, an incredible time-saver.

Some of my most productive days have been ones where I didn't touch a line of code; instead, I helped clearly define the problem at hand, or helped onboard a fantastic new hire. These are the sorts of days that save you somewhere between weeks and years of time, depending on the importance of the problems / decisions involved.

Conversely, I find many engineers are limited in their careers by a blind focus on "productivity" - forgetting that it's often not about superhuman individual effort, but rather about sustained, intelligent, and proactive team effort. (Not to mention that "seat time", "working hours", etc. slowly become proxy metrics for "productivity", thus ensuring burnout, mistakes, and wasted effort.)

If I am heads down working on a problem I might look at email when I get in at 8:45 but not look at again until after lunch.

1) keep work email and personal email segregated by only using your work email for work related services. Also, don't prioritize personal email over doing actual work.

2) turn on do not disturb if you're heads down if you can't bring yourself to ignore notifications

3) let coworkers know when you're heads down so they don't call or stop by your desk so that they know why you aren't answering.

4) if possible, try to push back on meeting times that conflict with focus times

5) turn on automatic software updates or defer them

I mean, both do have their uses. IM can be great for live debugging. But most IM's do not fall into that category.

So there's still value in crappy submissions...