Is Spam Impacting Your Productivity

Most of us are quite familiar with spam. No, this is not the sandwich substitute from the 1950s, but junk email. Spam can clog up your email inbox and just the simple act of having to delete it can actually impact productivity. In 2008, PC World studied this phenomenon and found that the average employee in the United States received 21 daily spam messages.

That doesn’t seem like a lot, especially in today’s climate.

However, they also estimated that for the 16 seconds it would take each worker to delete those 21 spam messages, it costs about $712 (US) every single year. Today there are more spam filters out there helping to reduce the amount of junk mail the gets through, but many of us still become inundated by them.

What kind of impact can this have on your productivity?

The first thing that most people would associate with diminished productivity and spam email has to do with people opening those messages. Yes, some people will open those messages, especially if the subject line is compelling or even frightening. Just opening one message and taking time out of your busy schedule to read it, even if it’s just the first paragraph, is causing you lost productivity.

Everycloudtech.com understands the value in productivity and offers great insight into other ways you could be losing productivity.

On top of that, spam can be dangerous.

In many types of emails, including the ones that slip past even the best spam filter out there, there will likely be links. Some of those links look legitimate. It might appear as though it came from the person’s financial institution, doctor, or some other individual who might have a reason to contact them with just such a message.

However, those links, attachments, and more can all contain viruses or lead to malicious websites that can affect systems, causing entire systems to crash, resulting in millions upon millions of dollars in lost productivity and damages.

How can you limit this potential impact?

For those who want to minimize the impact spam emails can have on their productivity, spam filters are the first step. However, as most of us already know, that’s not nearly enough.

Opt out of email subscriptions.

With your work email, at the very least, it’s highly advised that you opt out of any and all subscriptions right now. Yes, some of them could be legitimate, but they may sell their lists or others may acquire your email address surreptitiously from them.

Avoid subscribing to new lists and unsubscribe from any that you already have.

Next, set up a junk email account, such as a Hotmail or Outlook account, where you might subscribe to some of those lists, but only check your email outside of normal working hours. This is where all of your junk mail will hopefully end up, rather than your work email inbox.

Finally, make sure you have the best spam filter working for you. The better the spam filter, the more likely it’s going to catch the junk emails you don’t want, especially those that could potentially cause damage to your computer, system, or impact your productivity negatively.