FUDBuster: E-Mail: More Time-Waster Than Timesaver

FUDBust: In its White-Collar Productivity Index (WPI), a five-year study of more than 1,000 users, IBT-USA found that e-mail is not as effective as a productivity tool as it's cracked up to be. The WPI shows that the time spent handling e-mail has skyrocketed, from about four hours per week to 8.8 hours per week during the study period. And time spent handling paper mail has not dropped proportionally--it decreased from two hours per week in 2000 to 1.3 hours in 2004. But the downturn in productivity is not just an IT problem; time spent attending ineffective meetings has risen from 0.7 hours per week in 2000 to 2.1 hours per week in 2004. This is a serious problem--you'd better send me e-mail about it so we can set up a meeting.