Anick – Resist the urge to immediately follow up an e-mail with an instant message or phone call. Make sure the subject line clearly reflects the topic and urgency of an e-mail. And use “reply all” sparingly.

Workers get disoriented every time they stop what they are doing to reply to an e-mail or answer a follow-up phone call because they didn’t reply within minutes. Workers can spend 10 to 20 times the length of the original interruption trying to get back on track. Link.

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