Margaret Heffernan Quotes

E-mail is a victim of its own success.

I love technology, and man, is it helpful. But it also means you're always on. Always findable. Always available to 'just take five minutes' to answer an email, tweet a link for someone, check in quickly on FourSquare.

I don't read e-mails because I hate them.

Workers in government, the arts, and industry report that the sheer volume of email they receive is overwhelming, taking a huge bite out of their day. We feel obliged to answer our emails, but it seems impossible to do so and get anything else done.

I would love to have the power to stop waking at 3 a.m. every night to check my e-mail.

I take my mobile phone and iPad wherever I go. I like to switch off when I'm on holiday, but I always check emails in case someone at home is trying to get hold of me.

Wherever we are, any time of night or day, our bosses, junk-mailers, our parents can get to us. Sociologists have actually found that in recent years Americans are working fewer hours than 50 years ago, but we feel as if we're working more. We have more and more time-saving devices, but sometimes, it seems, less and less time.

There's no down time any more.

I've given up email. Well, almost. At the weekend I set up one of those auto-reply messages, informing my correspondents that I would no longer be checking my emails, and that instead they might like to call or write, as we used to in the olden days.

I learned not to confuse 'busy' with 'productive,' but I'm still far too addicted to email to resist its early-morning digital snuggles.

I used to work for 12 or 14 hours at a time but the digital age has made such happy immersions almost impossible.

You can't pick up a business magazine ever without seeing the word 'collaborate' splashed all over it. I think people are probably feeling assaulted by the need to always be on and always be interacting.

People spend an enormous amount of time in their inboxes, compulsively checking, and it's slow, distracting, and inefficient. It's almost a counterproductivity tool.

I have a choice - I can either watch all the dailies, or I can follow the social media. I can't do both.

I'm not one of those people who sits at dinner on their iPhone all night. I'm either working or I'm not. I've gone down that path where you sleep with your phone beside the bed and send an email just before you put your head down and check everything again when you wake up, and I don't like it.

Email is familiar. It's comfortable. It's easy to use. But it might just be the biggest killer of time and productivity in the office today.

I get notes posted on my windscreen wipers and through my letterbox.

I love travelling with my laptop because I get a bit nervous if I can't access my e-mails.

It's physically hard for me to work. I start to break down, physically. My joints start. I get weepy eyes. I don't sleep well. I was never a hard worker, I guess. So the voiceover work ethic is really great for me - couple days a month, two hours a day.

I'd like to dial it back 5% or 10% and try to have a vacation that's not just e-mail with a view.

My inbox is the enemy.

It's probably this way with a lot of professionals: At first the BlackBerry is a savior, because it makes you mobile, but then it becomes a curse, because you're at a restaurant and looking down at it under the table.

I work late nights catching up on emails, and then, in the mornings, I just hop on my laptop right away. Then, every other day, I'll hop into the shower! My husband is horrified that I don't shower every day.

Basically, when I get home I just do emails for around three hours, which stinks. I have a thing about getting into your inbox every night before going to bed. I'm usually working from my laptop or my phone, desperately trying to get my inbox to zero before I fall asleep.

Technology is just so fast. As convenient as it is, it's stressing a lot of us out. It's just too much, too quick. And I'm interested in that conversation.