B
Evidence Grade B
Graded
accuracy verified by the review judge
Safe to Cite
Current
28%
28% -- share of workweek spent on email for Knowledge workers (2026)
Knowledge workers spend up to 28% of their workweek managing email according to McKinsey research.
- Described as 'up to 28%'
- Equivalent to about 11 hours per week
Attribution:
View source
Lighthouse Research Team
Last verified:
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Source verified
Evidence graded
Value
28%
Unit
Percentage
Data Vintage
2026
Entity
Evidence Quality
B
Strong, reliable evidence
Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.
Score breakdown
Extraction
50
Source Trust
60
Citation Chain
20
Independence
30
Methodology
45
Freshness
95
Sources (3)
McKinsey & Company
Primary
Tier C
https://verified.email/blog/reviews/best-gmail-cleanup-tools ↗
Source Article
Best Gmail Cleanup Tools In 2026: Ranked And Reviewed
According to McKinsey research, knowledge workers spend up to 28% of their workweek managing email, which is about 11 hours a week.
A survey of 250 professionals by Mailbird found that they waste an average of 10.8 hours a week on email tasks that aren't important.
Once AI triage is on, SaneBox says…
Also cited by
2026-09-26
Vero (blog.getvero.com)
https://web.archive.org/web/20141020031330id_/http://blog.getvero.com/inbox-zero…
2026-09-18
Original Research
McKinsey & Company
· Original study ↗
Methodology
McKinsey research on knowledge worker email management time, as cited by verified.email (article states equivalent of about 11 hours per week); article describes the figure as 'up to 28%'
Methodology documented
Segmentation
Industrymarketing
Cite this stat
Plain Text
Knowledge workers: 28% share of workweek spent on email. Source: McKinsey & Company (2026). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/knowledge-workers-email-workweek-share
HTML Embed
<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/knowledge-workers-email-workweek-share" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>28%</strong> -- share of workweek spent on email for Knowledge workers<br><small>Source: McKinsey & Company (2026) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/knowledge-workers-email-workweek-share" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>
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