Information Overload: Too Much of a Good Thing?

On a typical workday, how many e-mail messages, faxes, and telephone calls do you receive? How many times are you interrupted at work? In this session, participants will complete an exercise, and then the presenters will facilitate a discussion about information overload causes, symptoms and countermeasures. One recent study found that the average North American knowledge worker receives more than 142 communications per day; in the form of e-mail messages, phone calls, face-to-face interruptions, etc. Spira (2005) estimates that unnecessary interruptions consume 28 percent of the average knowledge worker's day, imposing 28 billion lost hours on American companies each year, at an annual cost of $588 billion.