Twelve-step program aims to cure e-mail addiction

By Jon Hurdle

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Alcoholics have one, and so do drug abusers. Now people addicted to e-mail also have a 12-step program designed to tackle their obsession.

An executive coach in Pennsylvania has devised a plan to teach people how to manage the electronic tool, which some users say can be as much an intrusive waste of time as it is fast-paced and efficient.

Developed for cases such as a golfer who checked his BlackBerry after every shot, and lost a potential client who wanted nothing to do with his obsession, Marsha Egan's plan taps into deepening concern that e-mail misuse can cost businesses millions of dollars in lost productivity.

"There is a crisis in corporate America, but a lot of CEOs don't know it," Egan said. "They haven't figured out how expensive it is."

One of Egan's clients cannot walk by a computer -- her own or anyone else's -- without checking for messages. Other people will not vacation anywhere they cannot connect to their e-mail systems. Some wait for e-mails and send themselves a message if one hasn't shown up in several minutes, Egan said.

The first of Egan's 12 steps is "admit that e-mail is managing you. Let go of your need to check e-mail every 10 minutes."

Other steps include "commit to keeping your inbox empty," "establish regular times to review your e-mail" and "deal immediately with any e-mail that can be handled in two minutes or less but create a file for mails that will take longer."

Egan says she hosts no 12-step meetings but is planning a monthly teleconference for "e-mailers anonymous."

'HAD ME BY THE THROAT'

Michelle Grace, an insurance agent in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, said she receives up to 60 e-mails a day and uses Egan's program to make it less time-consuming and less stressful.

"E-mail had me by the throat," she said. "When you can't find what you need, then it becomes a problem."

Now that her e-mails are transferred -- some manually and some automatically -- into files, Grace said she spends less time hunting for them.

On average, workers who receive an e-mail take four minutes to read it and recover from the interruption before they can resume working productively, Egan said.

She also recommends checking e-mails not more than three or four times a day.

Some employees resist the lure of e-mail during the regular workday, only to find themselves putting in extra hours at home to clear the backlog, she said. One of Egan's clients said he had 3,600 e-mails in his inbox.