How many years of my life will be spent writing – and ignoring – emails? | Anita Chaudhuri

We now spend a whopping eight hours 42 minutes a week writing emails, according to a survey. That is a full working day each week that we will never get back and, even worse, only 42% of the emails we send are fully read and understood.

Frankly, I find the 42% figure to be on the high side.

Only last week I fell victim to the perils of the subject-and-first-line email speed read. A kind colleague had forwarded an invitation to an event. I scrolled past the subject line “Gallery Opening” to the stylishly designed invitation, noting the date.

I eagerly accepted the invite, only to realise I had not understood the time (9am not 9pm) or the address (miles from my house).

Still, at least I bothered to open the message. Typically, the employees surveyed will delete or ignore six emails a day based on subject line alone. Meanwhile, four in 10 said they wouldn’t bother reading an email that is longer than eight sentences. I’m sure everyone has someone in their life that hasn’t yet grasped that email isn’t the best vehicle for missives that would give Tolstoy a run for his money – especially when said email relates to details of exactly how to water their six plants when they are on holiday, to use a totally non-hypothetical example.

You might be wondering who conducted this survey. None other than Slack, a workplace instant messaging platform responsible for generating endless unnecessary communiques between workers across the globe. Now, if only someone would research how much time we waste responding to Slack notifications.