April 23, 2008

Email: The Quicker You Respond, The More Junior You Are?

If you’ve ever written to me via email you’ll probably know how painfully slow I am in responding (unless you’re waving money) and I’m very aware of this but not too sure how to really improve the situation considering the deluge I face every time I check the Inbox. I noticed an article in the New York Times recently started a discussion in the blogosphere about handling the volume of email - especially if you live digitally. Top blogger Michael Arrington was covered in the article on the oppression of the volume - and when he asked his readers for help, a common response was that he go get a secretary. Something he doesn’t want to do. Other bloggers have followed up on the discussion and suggested several time-management methods.

The question is - should email receivers just make their mail behavior more efficient or should we come to accept that when it comes to communicating with some people, real-mail might just be as fast as email these days.

6 Responses to “Email: The Quicker You Respond, The More Junior You Are?”

Matthew Nelson
Posted from: 81.49.1.116
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm

I say hire an assistant, the slower you are, the more junior you are! The average business person combats 150 plus messages a day! That’s the way it is.
Piers Fawkes
Posted from: 69.60.2.142
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Ha!
Brennan
Posted from: 141.133.162.167
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:25 pm

Timothy Ferriss, the pretentious author of The 4-Hour Workweek, suggests you create an automated message saying you’re only checking email twice daily - Noon and 6pm for example. If you’re an intern then you won’t be able to pull it off. You’ll look like a huge jerk. If you’ve been working for the man for a while then the email can wait…let ‘em call you if its urgent.
Nigel Legg
Posted from: 212.248.169.13
April 24th, 2008 at 4:26 am

The troublewih Ferriss’ solution is that you will miss that time-sensiive email from your client that he only sent to your personal gmail accout changing the parameters of the project and it’ll all go belly up. In terms of email, it’s 90% of what I do - send and receive. I don’t feel I’m on top of things unless I have outlook, gmail, and facebook messages cleared at all times. (not sure how many messages I get a day - about a hundred).
harry fowler
Posted from: 194.129.185.1
April 24th, 2008 at 5:53 am

I try to follow this, but not always successfully.

Email/message/txt etc comes in - read it once, decide what action you have to do, do it and then delete or archive.

As with communism, brilliant in theory but very difficult in practise.
Noah Brier
Posted from: 72.43.162.66
April 24th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

For whatever it’s worth, the person I know who responds most quickly to emails runs his own (successful) company . . .