Email overload: When email becomes the enemy

For years as a solo business owner and a communication consultant no less, I was a big, big advocate of email. A raving fan. I had no issues with email overload at all.

The applications of emails are endless. You can send documents all over town without engaging sweaty, Lycra-clad boys on bikes, you can converse with people, leave them a message, provide details of a brief…and all at a time that suits you.

This particularly suits those who, like me, prefer to work overnight. Few phones get answered at that time and I don’t like to text in case the ‘you’ve got a message’ beep wakes the recipient.

I considered email a work tool, not something extra you have to do on top of your work. It was a facilitator, the oil in the engine. In short, I was a fully paid up member of the email fan club.

It all changed when I defected to the dark side of institutional employment and discovered email overload.

I’m only there for part of my week, but now, I hate email. I hate nearly everything about institutional email. But naturally, email overload is not the technology’s fault: it’s the users.

People in institutions (what a nice general term for those not flying solo!) think email equals communication and lots of communication makes them efficient and well understood.

Not true.

Every day of my dark side life, I sort through rubbish in my inbox. Not the fun stuff making me tempting offers of memorable weekends, because – to their credit – institutional spam filters seem highly effective. But the email overload stuff that has nothing to do with me.

Most days I get several emails headed something like ‘only for building three’. Fair enough but I’m not in building three so don’t send it to me. Fix your lists. I also get heaps about people I have never heard of retiring. Why don’t people invite people they know to functions, rather than everyone on staff? And then there are the emails about the lift that doesn’t work in building 2 and someone in carpark 4 has left their lights on .

None of it has a single thing to do with me.

The union is a big emailer and every time I receive something from them, I wonder if it is easier to just keep deleting it or to get in touch to give them my ‘compulsory unionism is a scourge on democracy and personal freedoms, so please do not spam me’ speech. I keep deleting them.

The real problem is the email overload of detritus prevents me from finding the email I need to read. Seriously, some of it is vital stuff that I need to know to do my job. It arrives unheralded and I could easily miss it. And have in fact. No one calls and says “I am sending over something really important, can you please read it and get back to me?”.

Another pet hate are really long emails. Don’t always read those! So I might miss something in the nethers. Also, emailers don’t think to use the subject line to engage or inform or even to help with filing.

Engaging the reader often seems to give way to ‘I sent it in an email so therefore I have done all I need to do’.

All up, institutional email is an abomination that fosters miscommunication and lack of understanding.

Institutional life is teaching me so much that helps me in my consulting work, I may be forever grateful to it.

Perhaps I should send someone an email and say thanks.

Karen Morath of M Power consults, trains, speaks and coaches in public relations, personal effectiveness, life balance and all things empowering.

16 comments | Add your own 1 2 3 | Next» View all»

Hmmm, Karen something tells me you were not in a good mood when you wrote this article.
I get lots of email, and I'm always delighted to scan and delete, without having to produce a well-considered reply.
A great thing about email is you get the previous conversations below the most recent reply, so you can scroll down and check important stuff. Of cousrse this also means the important stuff is usually scattered through the original email and the six replies.
Does anyone know how to paste a saved message into a reply message, when using a Blackberry? Ben from sydney
I try to use emails more than telephone because its cheaper. However when we started our association it was how do we communicate with members in Karratha, Cairns and Darwin. Meetings are now done via the internet and emails are sent only if I need to communicate with a member privately.
Works well for us. patrick Burgess from north Ryde NSW
I love emails as a concept because they can be read at leisure, as opposed to the phone meaning that the caller interrupts the receiver.
In reality, however, I have a brutal anti-spam regime in place and can't wait until someone works out that productivity could be tripled if senders were billed 10c for each email sent.
Just think about it - if YOU, as the writer don't think its worth the price of a stamp, why should I bother reading it? Put it on a forum/blog like this, so anyone who cares can respond! Grant Hyman from Sydney | Read my articles
www.inboxzero.com
Correctly applied, it will change your life.. :-) Scott Handsaker from Melbourne | Read my articles
Managing your business communication via email is fantastic, as long as your using a proper tool like Outlook. You can file letters, multi task to several people, set priorities through task manager, delete.
It is a time management tool and if your getting overload, then you need to review your approach. It can be time wasting if you receive and send jokes and messages to friends etc. But is great to review news, share ideas, and it helps me be very clear in what I have asked a staff member to do, its in black and white. By all means dont use email as your only source of communication, spend time face to face with staff, clients, - it will keep you sane!!! Mike Orloff from Main Beach Australia
Hey Karen, I think you're right on the money with those who think more emails=efficiency + great communication. Perhaps we need to do an Email Bootcamp for (dis)organisations? I still love love love love email. In fact, I have been known to send emails to my partner who sits 3 feet away in our shared office, rather than turning around and sharing the information in one of those conversation-thingies. You know, like, so I don't interfere with her workflow, man... I know, it's very sad. Seriously though, I found that my email overwhelm diminished greatly when I became a very good friend of the Delete button (Motto: Delete with abandon!) - and also having as little as possible to do with institutions - but that's a whole other article... Trish Weston from Noosa Heads | Read my articles

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