What to Know: Two full workdays per week are spent on email and in meetings, according to new data from Microsoft examining the work patterns of millions of workers. The average employee spent 57% of their time using software for communication, equaling about 16 hours (think: email and meetings). The remaining 43% of time was spent on more creative work pursuits. These figures do not include other workplace encounters, like instant messages or casual conversation with co-workers.

Why It Matters: The leader of the study, who also leads Microsoft’s modern-work team, put it this way: “People feel quite overwhelmed, a sense of feeling like they have two jobs, the job they were hired to do, but then they have this other job of communicating, coordinating and collaborating."

Workers Now Spend Two Full Days a Week on Email and in Meetings (The Wall Street Journal)