Hooked on e-mail

Can writer Molly Gunn cure her e-mail addiction in two weeks?

As a freelance writer, my e-mail constantly stops me from being able to knuckle down to work. Take yesterday, for example; I'd innocently sent a group e-mail to some friends. Moments later, I was inundated; each time I replied to one, another would appear. An hour and a half later, I still hadn't come up for air.

It's a common problem and it's not healthy. A recent survey** found that people distracted by incoming e-mails see a lQ -point fall in their IQ - more than twice that found in studies on the impact of marijuana. And it's set to get worse. Another survey*** predicts the number of e-mails sent worldwide daily will rise from 135 billion to 330 billion by 2009.

With this in mind, US life­ coach Marsha Egan has launched an e-book, 12 Steps to Curing Your Email E-ddiction that is proving a huge hit in the States and over here. Although 12-step programmes are usually devised for helping alcoholics and drug addicts, I'm curious. Can I really cure myself of my e-mail addiction in two weeks?

Step 1 is admitting my e-mails are 'managing' me. I have no problems facing up to this. On a recent girls' holiday, my friends only checked their e-mails once a day, but I had my BlackBerry permanently glued to the palm of my hand.

Step 2 says I must 'commit to keeping' my inbox empty. Empty? I've still got messages in there dating back two years! Marsha says that an inbox should act like a letter box and points out that when we receive letters through the post, we don't just leave them lying on the mat. To help me get my head around this, steps 3 and 4 explain the art of 'organized filling' . As instructed, I create a folder for 'important', one for 'to be read', and so on - but it takes me two days to file all my e-mails accordingly.

I may have organized my e-mails, but I'm still fixated on checking them. This is where steps 5 and 6 come in. I'm to 'adopt the two-minute rule', where I must determine if I can deal with an e-mail in two minutes or file it immediately. I take a day to perfect this rule, but just as I think I'm doing well, step 7 chills me to the bone: 'Turn off your automatic send receive', it states. This means e-mails will be hidden unless I view them manually.

I must also limit checking my inbox to once every 90 minutes. But what if someone sends me something really important? Ten minutes pass. I get up to make a cup of tea, then sit back down. This is hard.

Forty minutes later, I click on the receive button. Twelve e-mails have come in. They're all junk.

Another four days pass and I'm down to checking e-mails once an hour; it's getting easier. As soon as I receive e-mails, I immediately file them into the relevant folders, so that my inbox stays clear.

Step 8 tests my willpower to the max. I can now only check my e-mails at specific times of the day. This is tricky to begin with, but by the middle of week two it's becoming second nature to me.

Step 9 advises the addict to 'involve others in conquering your addiction'. This requires me to ask my friends to stop e-mailing me so often; the only problem being that they're also addicted to their inboxes.

Step 10 clinches the deal for me. To reduce the amount of e-mails I receive, I need to send out fewer. I can see the logic: bye-mailing less, I won't have so many e-mails to reply to. Simple!

Step 11 advises keeping e-mails concise and leaving out any peripheral matter (being a Virgo, I have no problems with this). Lastly, step 12 encourages me to celebrate. As I toast overcoming my e-mail addiction with a glass of chilled Prosecco, this is the best step of all.

Fact in a recent survey: 78 per cent of respondents claimed they couldn’t live without e-mail in the workplace.

12 Steps to Curing Our Email E-ddiction (around £18)

by Marsha Egan

is available from marshaegan.com