Chapter Managing Distractions 8 T he more managers focus on distractions, the less they focus on results. And in today's world, e-mails present a distraction. Cer- tainly, when people are asked what they do for a living, no one says, "I write and answer e-mails." Yet that's what a lot of people spend their time doing. According to an article by K. J. McCorry, published in August 2009, more than 50 billion e-mails were sent every day in 2001. 1 Five years later, it was up to 6 trillion messages. Last year, that worked out to 160 messages per day per office worker. At least 88 percent of it is junk--spam, commercial newsletters, or other unsolicited messages. Answering e-mails isn't getting work done. One of the most time- wasting e-mails I've gotten recently is from a company offering a semi- nar in "how to sort through e-mails, texts, and voice messages." I had to wonder whether their instruction would include how to deal with future e-mails from their own company. 155