A new study highlights how face-to-face trumps email

Many of us have probably had the thought: “That could’ve been an email.”

But a series of recent studies build a compelling case that some emails should, in fact, be meetings, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Researchers at Florida International University…

… arranged four experiments where they split participants into two groups. The first group performed tasks in person, while the second performed the same tasks over email.

• The email group took 20 minutes to arrive at a sales strategy that took the face-to-face group six minutes.
• Email participants also performed worse on a variety of ensuing tasks, from spotting grammar errors to deciphering logic problems.

The big takeaway? Email is best for simple tasks — but when things get complicated, it exacerbates the problem.

How can you prevent email paralysis?

Dr. Ravi Gajendran, author of the study, says regular meetings can help reduce the risk of getting stuck in endless email threads.

Great, so more meetings.