Translator: Kacper Borowiecki Reviewer: Ingrid Lezar
Hello!
Welcome back!
Good news. Maybe you'll think,
[Email makes you stupid, sick, and poor.]
"Surely that's not good news."
True, but one of my life lessons is
that you have to know the bad news
to be able to turn it into good news.
Small warning for the next 18 minutes:
Much of what I'll say will sound as if
I'm preaching the digital end-times.
It's not the case, in fact,
it's totally false.
The Internet, digital communication and I
have been joined for 15 years
in what has become, meanwhile, a very happy romantic relationship.
But why "meanwhile" very happy?
Because in all the years of high-speed communication,
I've finally found the right balance between distance and closeness,
which you also need to be happy with a real-life partner.
So that was my introduction.
[Ping!]
Do you remember your first email?
It was crazy, right?
You could suddenly send a letter from here to Timbuktu overnight!
You might've received a photo in return only to discover
that your childhood sweetheart
now looks like a pirate copy of Homer Simpson,
but it didn't matter.
You received a photo, and you did so via email.
Initially email was a silver bullet.
It was all good. It linked the world.
It brought us humans closer together.
It helped us to save time,
be more productive, and have more time to enjoy life.
The early days were so wonderful,
but even before we consumers could send our first emails,
something happened in my hometown.
1984 - George Orwell was onto something with that date.
In 1984, on what was likely an overcast September day,
the first email reached Germany,
in my hometown of Karlsruhe.
As you know, 1984 is quite a while back,
I was still young and analogue.
(Laughter)
Had I known
what email would provoke in us decades later,
when we misapplied the technology,
I would've gone on a chocolate hunger strike that very day.
So some time had to go by,
and what began as a beneficial innovation
unfortunately looks quite different today.
Look at me, I also look different now.
Between the left and right pictures, almost 30 years have passed.
I'm 38 years old,
but minus 4.
I did some recalculation:
In the last 10 years, before I went freelance,
from 2000 to 2010,
I spent - or likely often wasted - 4 years of time on digital communication.
I calculated it.
I lost two and a half years on surfing
and one and a half on email.
Now you could say 38 minus 4 or plus 4.
It is indeed a matter of perspective.
And indeed, much happened during this time.
And maybe you're asking yourself,
"How can someone be online for 4 out of 10 years?"
It was part of the job: I was part of the hardcore Internet industry,
in which high-speed communication was a competitive advantage;
it brought sales, created jobs,
secured jobs.
And for you to get a handle on what my relaxed workday
looked like over these 10 years,
I'd like to show you a short video.
(Alarm)
(Music at high speed)
(Music ends)
I pulled the plug a year and a half ago.
One of the triggers was an anecdote
that a colleague told me one morning.
One sentence from the story made me take stock
and made me question
what I'm doing to my brain and my life
in this high-speed communication rat race.
I'd like to tell you the story.
My colleague came into my office on Monday and said,
"Anitra, you won't believe what happened to me at the weekend!"
"I was at the playground with my little boy
and as always couldn't leave my Blackberry alone!"
I must say that my colleague was a hardcore Blackberry addict.
I hid his company Blackberry before his holiday
in my desk drawer.
He swore he wouldn't take it along.
When I came back to my office, the Blackberry was gone,
because he couldn't live without this device.
He was at the playground with his son.
Child on the swings; he's "playing" with him,
in that, with his other hand,
he's checking mails the whole time.
And then he received a mail that somehow annoyed him.
He pushes the swing a bit too hard,
the little boy falls, starts crying,
and then came the sentence:
"Daddy, your phone makes ouch!"
I thought a lot about this sentence
and knew that the time had come,
after so many high-speed years, to take stock.
And so one comes face to face with hard facts - 10 of them.
First: these days, we pay more attention to our smartphones
than to our children.
We are more attentive to digital communication
than to that which keeps our bodies going,
namely, our breath.
We spend more time on emails
than on what we actually get paid for,
namely,
for thinking.
We are permanently distracted and proud of this loss of control;
we call it:
career.
The paradox: we know that our brain is not a muscle,
and yet we train it with permanent multi-tasking
and somehow think
that it's healthy.
Science claims the opposite:
multi-tasking is unhealthy.
Being distracted by email makes you stupid.
Two groups of test subjects: One group was stoned
while trying to solve puzzles; the other group
was distracted by emails.
Take a guess: which group of subjects
was faster and better?
(Laughter)
Distraction leads to Attention Deficit Trait (ADT).
This term was coined by Harvard physician Edward Hallowell.
ADT means that our brain becomes addicted to distraction.
The study claims that an IT manager is distracted from his work
on average every 11 minutes.
Distraction number 1: email.
Distraction number 2: colleague enters, "Could you just..."
Distraction number 3: mobile phone.
The problem is that our brain is conditioned to these stimuli.
Meaning, a stimulus comes,
dopamine is released in the brain, and we feel happy.
The more we are distracted, the more dependent our brain becomes
on the dopamine release.
And the twisted thing is, when there's no distraction,
we create one.
We check emails and don't know
what to attend to next
if an interruption doesn't present itself.
["I'm addicted to interruptions! Without one, I don't know what's next."]
If managers are saying this, such interruptions are expensive.
Per day, one hour of distraction
through email, unproductiveness, loss of concentration,
let's take a manager-in-training,
who earns 3700 euro per month,
whose cost to company
including non-wage labour costs and overheads,
is about 100 euro per hour.
Then, with 250 workdays a year,
this one hour per day of distraction and loss in concentration
costs the company 25 000 euro per year.
If you have a small or medium-sized business,
with 100 employees,
their distraction costs you
2.5 million euro per year.
The problem is that our "dealer" is always in our pockets -
at the weekend, at night, on holiday.
Thanks to smartphones, we are always available.
We are slaves to our work, and the crazy thing is
we go get this work ourselves, from inside the phone.
We look for distraction, quick check, again and again.
It's sick.
How sick was proved by one of the smartest women in Germany,
Miriam Meckel, once one of the youngest professors,
undersecretary of state, great author, communication scientist.
Three years ago she wrote a book:
"Unreachable and happy: How to escape the communication trap."
Last year this work by her was released:
"A letter to my life: [Experiencing burnout]."
Both books became bestsellers,
and we see that even such a self-reflective person,
who should've known how to avoid burnout, didn't.
The most important question is:
Do you do your emails, or do your emails do you in?
Ten tips for regaining power over your communication.
The first tip: a shift in consciousness
must take place in your mind.
Emails are not ego boosters.
If you think: "I mail, therefore I am," for example, "important,"
you can cross out "important"
and continue as follows:
"I mail, therefore I am
a slave."
True masters are reachable when they want to be.
Only slaves can always be commanded; true masters command their time.
So make yourself the lord of your time.
Second rule: Start your morning offline. Very important!
Emails always want something from you.
When you start your day in bed with emails,
you'll be whipped all day like a mule.
Don't allow it! Define your own priorities.
What 20% of the work will bring about 80% of the results?
Don't let your planning be interrupted.
When your to-do list is ready,
then you can switch on your computer,
be distracted,
but first define: What do I want from this day?
Rule number 3 - simple but poignant:
Shut your mail.
Everything that signals "new message,"
"new chat," "new Facebook message" -
rigorously switch off all audio and visual signals.
Even better: close your mailbox.
Because this rule also applies to email:
three times a day for working on emails,
focusing on them, saying, "It's time for email,
I'm focused on it," is more than enough.
Define your "email opening hours"
and communicate them
to all the people you work with, colleagues, service providers,
so that everyone knows that you're not always available,
but at these times you are,
and - even better - with your full attention.
The next rule is so simple that you have to try it today:
You'll reap as much email as you sow.
Email is like ping-pong.
If from today you write 30% less email,
you'll receive 30% less.
Try it.
I'll bet you all 100 euro
that it works;
it's easy to implement and doesn't hurt.
Next very important but oft forgotten principle:
Language is the source of all misunderstandings.
We've all seen an email
that wasn't meant to be mean, but that was received that way.
Unfortunately ten superiors were CCed.
Only send out what you'd like to receive.
Never write when you're angry.
Don't use Saturday or Sunday night to send your team
a to-do list for Monday.
Consider in advance how much pressure you are exerting
and always ask yourself,
"Would I want to receive an email like this from someone?"
If you can't answer this question
with a big fat "Yes,"
then maybe email isn't the medium
for your present message.
Ask yourself this question every time before you hit send.
For your emails to be received efficiently, one thing is crucial.
In your mind, replace the "subject" line with an "object" line,
because this object or goal opens the door to all your emails.
It doesn't have to be like "FW: At Reference: FW: At XY: Funny."
It should state what this email wants from the recipient.
Why did he receive it? What should be done?
Write a good subject line by clearly stating your object,
and if you forward an email - please note -
the goals of the communication might have changed,
which means the object needs to be adapted accordingly.
When writing emails, you can't go wrong
if you write for the presumed dumbest reader;
write like a tabloid journalist, as it were.
Old journalism wisdom:
open with the important stuff, be brief, and cover all the Ws and the one H:
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?
Bullet points guide the eye.
Done.
Email can't substitute group discussions or novels.
Before you send your next email,
not from your Blackberry or iPhone, please;
these emails usually aren't intellectual masterpieces,
turn on your mail-shit radar.
Ask yourself before you send:
"Is email truly the best form of communication in this case?
Might a phone call
be more personal and faster?
Might an in-person conversation
convey an emotion better and more personally than this email?"
And if the other person is in Timbuktu, why not
have a video conference -
and make sure to look him or her in the eye
Check again:
Is my subject line the object I want to achieve?
Is the mail concise and clear and does it tell the recipient
what to do with it?
And when you can say
that you'd like to receive such an email yourself
please, press send, but just 30% less than before.
And the last rule:
Every unsent email is a good email.
If you feel overwhelmed by emails, remember:
everyone else does too.
If you send fewer emails,
you do all of humanity a favour.
These 10 rules all sound so easy
that I feel they insult my intelligence.
But the point is that the more Attention Deficit Trait
you already have
the harder it will be
to implement these 10 rules.
So my advice is to start with these rules:
Start your morning offline and plan your day,
send 30% less email,
open your mailbox three times a day and close it otherwise.
If you can keep to these three for one week without withdrawal symptoms,
only then revisit the others.
[A year from now you'll wish you had started today.]
Take this quote to heart
and if you're afraid you'll miss the end of the world in offline mode,
I can tell you that when the world ends,
you'll know it with or without email.
The only thing you could miss out on if you're online all the time
hanging onto digital communication with all you've got
is
[your life.]
In this spirit:
Bon voyage!
(Applause)