Emails – useful tool or office timewaster?

So apparently, worldwide, we send 196 billion emails a day and the average employee spends up to 2 hours a day dealing with emails. Some firms are also introducing ‘no email days’ to encourage employees to phone each other or talk face to face. OK so maybe we get a bit lazy sending emails across the office asking who wants coffee, and sometimes picking up the phone can be a much more efficient way of doing things. But is it really a “broken business tool”? How else would we send huge documents in the click of a button, communicate with a wide range of people all at once and keep copies of all our conversations? A few extra emails and a bit of amusing spam is a small price to pay for a tool that makes business life a whole lot easier.