An Exploratory Analysis of Email Processing Strategies

An indispensable mode of communication and information sharing in modern organizations is email. In particular, emails have been known to cause interruptions in the processing of knowledge workers' primary tasks, thereby increasing information overload. There is a penalty, in terms of extra reimmersion time, associated with every task that gets interrupted by email. So, how often should one process email? In this study, we have modeled and compared different ways in which this interruption effect of emails can be reduced. We use simulation to study the interruption effects on two different types of tasks (longer tasks and shorter tasks). Prior research has suggested that the best policy to respond to emails is every 45 minutes. Contrary to prior research, the findings of this study seem to suggest that, in most cases, knowledge worker performance could be improved by responding to emails 4 times in a given working day. Another major contribution of the paper is a contingency framework that prescribes a policy to use in responding to emails in various working environments so as to reduce the effect of interruptions caused by emails. Keywords-Emails, interruptions, information overload, task analysis & simulation.