BRAINCHAINS. Discover your brain and unleash its full potential in a hyperconnected multitasking world by Theo Compernolle

Author:Theo Compernolle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Theo Compernolle
Published: 2014-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

7.3 CHECKING YOUR E-MAIL ALL THE TIME, ESPECIALLY ON A PHONE, IS RIDICULOUSLY INEFFICIENT

I hope I convinced you in the chapters on BrainChain #1 and #2 that checking your e-mail all the time is very inefficient, but it becomes ridiculously so when you do it on your smartphone!

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Unbalanced brainworkers never have time to watch their daughter playing soccer on Sunday.

Poorly balanced brainworkers are constantly pecking away on their smartphone while trying to watch their daughter playing soccer.

Blandly balanced brainworkers keep an eye on their smartphone while they are watching their daughter playing and immediately peck an answer when one of the e-mails comes from their boss.

Well-balanced brainworkers have their phone in their pocket, get totally involved in the game of their daughter and send their boss a thoughtful answer the next day.

Inspired by an idea by Jennifer Chatman [386]

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You don’t need a degree in ergonomics or even a college degree to understand that doing e-mails all the time on the tiny keys of a smartphone with the biggest and the least dexterous fingers of your hand, while the autocorrect tries to make fun of your input, cannot be very efficient to say the least. As I described in the chapter about local stress it is also as bad as you can get it in terms of ergonomics, ergonomic efficiency and risks of getting RSI, neck and shoulder pains and headaches.

To make things even worse, on a phone you tend to handle your e-mails one at a time, which is the least efficient way. If you start with the most recent ones and answer them, you miss information from earlier ones. On the other hand, if you do them in chronological order, you are often answering questions and issues that have already been answered.

Even with the smartest of smartphones or tablets and the best of connections it is much more difficult to access your calendar, a memo or a spreadsheet than on a big screen, and it is impossible to have them open together next to each other. Smartphones have no desktop and on a tablet you lose half of your screen for a clumsy error-prone keyboard. Moreover, in the office most professionals have information at hand that is not easily available on the Internet or that is very difficult to read on a phone. So, after having already read the mail on their phone or tablet, they decide to do it again in the office!

Your concentration and attention on the go is only a fraction of what it is in your office, especially once you have learned to disconnect yourself there from all interruptions. By working on the go you will make more stupid mistakes more often, typically reply to all with a message only one person should have gotten and react in ways you would never do when you are writing in a better suited environment.

As I mentioned earlier, reading off a big computer screen results in slower reading and a decrease in comprehension and recall (and drier tired eyes) compared to reading off paper.

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