Are you addicted to checking email on your phone? Do you think your spouse is addicted? If so, you’re not alone. Check out this great FREE video seminar recorded at MIT:

http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/mit.edu.1405705794

These days you don’t have to interview too many people to find someone who admits to checking his email right before he falls asleep, before he gets out of bed in the morning, when he pulls up to each and every stop light, as he is walking though the mall, while he is sitting in a movie at the theater, etc.

If that’s you, you’re addicted. If that’s partly you. You’re still addicted, and the addiction may actually get worse.

[No, Twin Bees didn’t coin the term CrackBerry.]

There are DOZENS of benefits to having mobile access to email, including:

• Take advantage of new opportunities in real time, as they come in
• Respond immediately to new customer inquiries
• Provide fast, top-notch service to clients, answering questions and concerns more quickly
• Spend more time out of the office by being able to communicate remotely, anywhere.

And there are as many CONS to constantly having email access:

• You’ll concentrate LESS on what or who is right in front of you (colleague, YOUR KIDS, the game, work, etc.)
• Creates constant (but minor) stress in the back of your head, i.e. I wonder what’s happening with ____ project or person?
• Dangerous: If used while driving, riding a bike, walking across the street, etc.
• You’re never really disconnected, and never get to enjoy a true mental vacation, day off, or weekend off.

In a book that I recently read, the auther notes that he only checks email for 30 minutes, once per week! As the CEO of a very large company, he says, “by not checking email and not getting back to people quickly, they have stopped writing to me, and I am no longer expected to put out their fires. In many cases the problems have simply stopped developing in the first place since they know I am not there to fix them.”

Oh, he also never checks his office voicemail. His outgoing office voicemail message tells callers to send him an email instead. Then, he uses auto-reply on his email to tell people that he will get back to them in a week when he checks his email. “But if it’s an emergency, call my cell phone, if you have the number.”

This is a perfect scenario for some people. Wouldn’t work for me, but could work for you.

So what do you think? Are you addicted? Chained to your email? Is your email controlling you instead of the other way around? Click the comments tag below to leave yours…