How many work emails is too many?
Many of us feel overburdened by emails at work. These frustrations were given voice by an assistant of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex last year who quit after her "demanding" employer would email her early as 5am in the morning. Now an employee of Carole Middleton, mother of the Duchess of Cambridge, has gone public about being "bombarded" with 71 emails a day by her boss. Some may be shocked, but many of us may feel the employee of the party catering firm had it easy. After all, the average office worker apparently receives 121 emails and sends about 40 each day.
As the number of emails received rises, so too does evidence that email overload is a bad thing. It can take upwards of 20 minutes to get back to a task after being interrupted by an email. Constant email distractions can also temporarily lower IQ by an average of 10 points, and make people perform much worse at a task. Email can also crowd out the main tasks people are hired to do, leaving them frustrated.
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