Inbox zero and other productivity myths. 

A survey of 17,000 knowledge workers worldwide finds email lacking when it comes to effective workplace communication.

Three takeaways from this report below:

1. More email, more problems. Employees who receive the most email—more than 50 emails a day—are paying a steep price for their willingness to go head-to-head with their inbox. These “hyper-connectors” are more likely than moderate email users to say they struggle with essential workplace tasks, such as finding information needed to complete projects, meeting performance goals, and aligning with other teams. 

2. Managing messages vs. getting work done. Workers are stymied just trying to manage an avalanche of messages. Meanwhile, their actual to-do lists get longer and longer: 82% of hyper-connectors say they have three or more active projects each day and 58% attend three or more meetings each day. 

3. Same inbox, vastly different workplace. No one would argue that the workplace of today looks or feels the same as it did in 1971. Yet that’s the year an engineer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fired off the first email. So it pays to ask: Are we equipping ourselves with the right tools for modern work?