Email is such a convenient and efficient communications medium… well, isn’t it?

Not so, according to the results of a survey conducted by Harris Interactive for Fortiva.

According to the report, 59% of employed adults using email at work state that they waste a lot of time trying to locate lost email and over 30% say they have had to recreate lost emails.

Over one quarter of those surveyed state that they fall behind in their work tasks due to the volume of email they receive (I’d definitely put my hand up on that one)

The report also states that the 61% of employees use work email facilities for personal reasons, which impacts on productivity. At least it’s not like the “old” days when business telephone lines would be tied up with personal calls :)

Other points from the survey include:

- High earning employees are more likely to admit to spending time searching for email.

- 27% have maxed out their work email storage space

- Higher income employees are more likely to use work email facilities for personal email

Read more of the survey

I don’t know about you, but some days I end up getting dizzy through constantly scanning through email folders (I have over 50) and email subject lines. The email handling errors that I’m most prone to are:

- Moving something into a certain folder to keep it “safe”, never to be seen again

- Rabid deletion psychosis fueled by a day of crap hitting my inbox

My pet peeves in email from others

- The no-warning 10 megabyte attachment, especially when I’m on dialup

- People whom I hardly know replying three weeks later with “yes” or “no” and not including the thread.

- ALL CAPS

- People who think that the anonymity of email is a license for them to be rude and unreasonable.

- People blessing me in their closing salutation. I’m beyond redemption :)

- The opening line of “Dear friend”.

Learn more about email etiquette

What about you? What’s your email Archilles heel and peeves?