These included all of the non-value added e-mails that employees need to sort through; internal announcements, queries from co-workers, items forwarded fyi, meeting confirmations and others.

Across a broad number of knowledge workers, these miscellaneous e-mails added up to 3.9 hours per week, much more than the 2.4 hours that employees said they would ideally like to spend on these. Those with activities outside of the office face a larger burden; 4.5 hours per week for field supervisors and 6.2 hours per week for sales reps. Remember: there is a lot more time spent on value-added emails – this is just the “stuff.”

Many of these e-mails are avoidable. Employees find themselves overwhelmed by dozens, if not hundreds of e-mails per day. Curiously though, while everyone complains about the volume of incoming e-mail, few will admit to being the culprits for sending it out.

Remember, if you send out one e-mail and copy twenty people, you have in effect sent out twenty e-mails.

Employees can make better choices to control their incoming e-mail.

• Take yourself off distribution lists.
• Avoid the use of the Reply All function.
• Stop saying “Thanks”. Fellow workers already know that you are an appreciative colleague.
• Ask subordinates not to copy you without including a cover note
• Unsubscribe from newsletters that are really extended sales pitches
• Don’t try to persuade someone through e-mail. Use a phone or meeting instead.
• Keep your messages short. Avoid telling stories.

So what makes up each of these categories?

Pace Productivity Inc, based in Toronto Canada, has been conducting productivity studies of knowledge workers since 1990.

We examined data from outside sales reps – those whose activities take them out of their offices to customers’ locations. The pie chart above  shows how their main activities break down.

The selling category consists of activities designed to seek out new business. Sales reps need to find, cultivate and maintain relationships with new prospects and existing clients. By keeping the funnel full of prospects, they can maintain a steady stream of business. This includes such activities as marketing, cold calls, calls to existing customers, sales visits, presentations and writing columns.

On average, these add up to 10.8 hours per week or just 22% of the workweek. This is quite surprising to sales managers who might expect their reps to be actively selling for at least 50% of the time. The reality though, is that other activities need to be done, and they infringe on selling time.

The good news is that many individuals are able to achieve above average selling time. For instance, financial planners spend 27% on this category. And among them, some individuals achieve over 40% of their time selling by hiring a full time assistant to handle their administrative and order processing activities.

Typically, sales reps engage in sales activities on 39 different occasions per week. These are direct contacts with customers and prospects, primarily phone calls and meetings with both current customers and prospects.

Sales calls to current customers are longer than those with prospects. Specifically, sales calls with customers typically take 11 minutes each, while those with prospects are only 7 minutes. The prospect calls may be shorter because some of them are just voice mail messages that are left.

When sales reps engage in face-to-face meetings, they spend an average of 29 minutes per meeting with current customers. Meetings with prospects are longer, at 51 minutes. Thus, telephone conversations tend to be short, but once meetings occur, there is a greater opportunity for in-depth discussions.

Understand how your time is spent, and then strive to allocate your efforts to the highest priority activities. Your time is worth it.