Holding meetings with his staff of fifty people.

Avoiding copying everybody when sending out an e-mail.

Calling clients on the phone and not relying so heavily on e-mail.

Checking his e-mail account only twice a day and turning off his Blackberry during meetings.

Responding to e-mails every minute and putting cell phones and PDAs on silent mode during meetings.

Can you get a handle on what your new boss expects of you?

Customers are asked not to handle the goods in the shop.

The clue was a handle for solving the mystery.

The travelers were advised to pick up the suitcases by the handle.

It was a difficult situation and the manager handled it very well.

an excess of emails has generated a sudden increase in productivity.

cell phones, PDAs and laptops have become excessively complex devices.

excessive e-mails and data overload have begun to negatively impact work.

offices have become more efficient due to e-mail and other information technology advents.

data avalanche has been a fortunate consequence of the widespread adoption of information technology.

at risk - disconnected

not accessible - put off

on the wire - linked to the internet

in tune with new ideas - off the hook

over the telephone - not connected to the internet

society as a whole lacks experienced professionals capable of detaining the information growth.

professionals feel burdened by the present data overflow because they have not learned how to deal with this new business scenario.

future professionals are properly trained in college and are given enough practice in dealing with digital communication tools.

businessmen are on the verge of a crisis as they have to learn to deal with an excess of tools and training methods to intensify the information burden.

businessmen have avoided the information overload in order to stop working on weekends.

multitasking has brought alarming consequences to modern society.

widespread technology has only brought benefits to human beings.

working on planes and coffee shops on weekends is a strategy of seduction.

all technology workers have been diagnosed with attention-deficit disorders.

excessive work makes professionals more effective in the age of 24-7 technology.

"actually" (line 9) means rarely.

"curtail" (line 11) is the opposite of reduce

"overwhelmed" (line 34) and unaffected are synonymous.

"immediacy" (line 41) and proximity are antonyms

"spawned" (line 47) could be replaced by generated.

"as well as curtail the common practice of cc-ing everybody when sending out an e-mail." (lines 11-13) – contrast

"but when an e-mail goes out and five people get cc-ed," (lines 15-16) – reason.

"In fact, he loves it." (lines 18-19) – condition.

"Besides, during tough economic times, who will want to miss any information…" (lines 30-32) – addition

"Work is very seductive, but yet we're actually less effective." (lines 52-53) – consequence

62 percent of professionals report that they spend a lot of time sifting through irrelevant information to find what they need; 68 percent wish they could spend less time organizing information and more time using the information that comes their way.

Workers admit that not being able to lay their hands on the right information at the right time impedes their ability to work efficiently; 85 percent agree that not being able to access the right information at the right time is a huge time-waster.

More than 80 percent of the survey participants admit they have no problem in handling increases in information flow because they have learned to sort the important messages.

While an average workday for white-collar workers is 8.89 hours, the survey finds that, on average, 7.89 working hours are used conducting research, attending meetings, and searching for previously created documents.

Though white-collar professionals, in general, spend an average of 2-3 hours daily conducting online research, at least one in 10 spend four or more hours with the same task on an average day.