Nearly one in four marketing professionals work 10 or more hours on an average day, with thirty-six per cent listing ‘interruptions’ as a major distraction prolonging their workdays, according to a new survey by AtTask.
Forty per cent of marketers blame manual tasks, unexpected projects and rework as primary sources of lost productivity. While more than a third have to spend three to four hours a day reading and responding to emails.
The research also revealed that due to lack of time, multitasking is now the norm. Forty-one per cent of marketers admitted they frequently multitask in meetings, while 82 per cent of respondents said they typically have at least six applications or tools open on their desktop at one time.
Meanwhile, because of these busy schedules, 56 per cent of respondents said they eat lunch at their desks.
Joe Staples, CMO at AtTask, commented on the findings: “In a fast-paced marketing environment, efficiency is everything.
“This survey validates what we know to be true — that marketers can’t expect mythical extra hours to be added to their workday, even while all of the interruptions and distractions push them into overtime to finish projects. Instead, they need to do more with the time they have, and that can happen with better collaboration, visibility and communication. Marketers lose too much time to problems that could be avoided or resolved with the right structure and tools.”
