How much time do people spend on email at work?

The best evidence we could check says that the heaviest email users spend about a fifth of a working week on email. In Microsoft's 2023 Work Trend Index, the top 25 percent of Microsoft 365 users spent 8.8 hours a week on email ¹. That is about 22 percent of a 40-hour week ². We found no current average for all workers that we could open and check, so the number for your job may be higher or lower.

The heaviest email users spend about a fifth of the week on it

Microsoft's figure describes the top quarter of its users, not the typical person, so it marks the heavy end of the range rather than its maximum. We could not open Microsoft's report itself, so the figure is as the news outlet that reported it gives it. It also covers email alone, not chat, calls or meetings, so a total work-communication figure would be higher.

The averages we tried to check are thin or out of reach

We also looked for averages for all workers and could not open a checkable source for one. So this page gives one checked figure for heavy users and none for the typical worker. Treat any single "average" you see online with the same caution, and ask what it counts.

Email also sits apart from the rest of writing. In a 2016 survey of 547 business people who write at least two hours a week for work, respondents averaged 20.4 hours of writing per week, excluding email ³. Email time and document-writing time are measured separately, so do not add the two numbers to get your writing load.

Reply length decides how much dictation can save

Suppose a day has ten replies averaging 120 words each, which makes 1,200 words in all. This is an illustration, not a measured average. Typing 1,200 words at the phone rate from the study takes about 23.1 minutes ⁴. Speaking text that is already composed takes about 7.8 minutes ⁵. The difference is about 15 minutes a day ⁶, and that figure assumes the replies are already written in your head.

The example shows the scale. A day of short acknowledgements saves little, and a day of long replies saves much more. Before you decide on dictation, count how many of your replies are long.

Switching between tasks adds a cost that the minutes miss

Email can also interrupt other work. In a controlled experiment, people reported significantly higher stress, frustration, workload, effort and time pressure after only 20 minutes of interrupted work ⁷. Batching your email into set sessions reduces how often you switch, and it is one reason to dictate long replies in a single block.

How to measure your own week

1. Log email for five working days. Note the time you start and stop reading and writing email, using your calendar, a timer or your device's own screen-time report.
2. Count the replies you write. Mark the ones over 100 words, since those are where dictation saves the most.
3. Estimate your typing rate. Write a short paragraph and time it, then divide the words by the minutes. The words per minute figure you get is more useful than a published average.
4. Apply the example. Multiply your long-reply words by the difference in your two rates to see the saving for your own inbox.

If the total is more than an hour a day, a faster way to write replies is worth trying. For the method, see how to dictate a professional email. For the speed comparison, see is dictating email faster than typing. For the wider picture of time saved across a job, see our guide to dictation productivity at work, and for the full method, see the guide to dictating email.