The Manager's Handbook

10Curing the Digital Disaster

A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.

—Bill Watterson

When most information arrived in our mailbox and not on our computer or phone, the typical executive received about 1,000 communications per year. Today that number has increased to 30,000!¹ We spend a mind‐numbing five hours per day processing email,² even though 40% of the email we receive we don't consider useful. That means every day we waste two hours alone with unnecessary email, before considering text messages, voice mail, and other collaboration platforms. What was supposed to save us time and make us more efficient has become a productivity ball and chain.

As the cost and ease of communication plummeted, it's become too easy to send a spreadsheet or a 30‐page PowerPoint presentation to a dozen people. We increasingly define our productivity by our ability to respond to an inbox full of other people's demands rather than working on what we know to be important. The elite consulting firm McKinsey & Company observed in a piece they aptly named “If we’re all so busy, why isn’t anything getting done?” “Interacting is easier than ever, but true, productive, value‐creating collaboration is not. And what's more, where engagement is occurring, its quality is deteriorating. This wastes valuable resources, because every minute spent on a low‐value interaction eats into time that could be used for important, creative, and powerful activities.” ...