Walk away from the email

Adrian Ott on the Fast Company blog reports on some research from People-on the Go about the amount of time executives are spending checking their email inboxes, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.  According to Ott, "Employees estimate that they spend spend about 4 hours a day (half a workday) managing multiple "inboxes.""  and "More than two-thirds (63.8%) of top management, and almost three-quarters of marketing (73.9%) and sales (74.2%) respondents check LinkedIn regularly".  I find these numbers a little high.  I know email is a constant distraction from getting things done but I find it hard to believe that many people are spending 4 hours a day in their inboxes.  Some research I recently did amongst small businesses in the UK indicated that LinkedIn is a popular tool for finding sales prospects and useful contacts but I don't get the impression it is used as much as the People-on the Go research claims. Perhaps it comes down to their definition of "regularly".  I regularly clean the car - every summer before we go on holiday.  Anyway, those points aside the research does look interesting and the chart below does ring true.