I wrote about this same topic some time back on Beyond the Rhetoric, but I feel it is worth revisiting for several reasons. Many of us, whether we work for ourselves or for a company, spend a good deal of time in front of our computers. It could be graphic design, web design, freelance writing, financial management… the list goes on. The personal computer has very much become a part of just about every industry and with the proliferation of the Internet and instant communication, email has also become an integral part of doing business.

At first, people said that email would help increase productivity, because business partners from around the globe could communicate with one another instantly, sending updated files and all sorts of other goodies in a simple name@domain.com kind of way. It seemed great at the time and I can’t imagine having the Internet without having access to email.

In a recent survey, more than one third of workers said that they were “stressed out” by email, because they feel that they need to respond to all messages as promptly as humanly possible. People have come to expect that when they send out an email, they’ll get a response within the next couple of hours. Contrast this to when people still used snail mail. Or even when someone was to leave a voicemail, it was perfectly acceptable to not reply until the next morning. With the instant gratification of the Internet, there is more pressure to reply instantly.

Furthermore, this same study found that these “stressed out” individuals checked their inbox “as often as 40 times an hour.” That’s more often than once every two minutes. I know that speaking for myself, I leave my Gmail window open all day, so I know right away if a message has come down the chute. Most of these aren’t urgent, but I feel compelled to know. In this way, I’m spending time reading and replying to email, rather than doing work that I actually get paid for.

Do you suffer from the same conundrum? Do you feel like your BlackBerry is just a company leash?