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

By: Noah Brier

Noah Brier — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:13:29 +0000

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

By: harry fowler

harry fowler — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:53:40 +0000

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.

By: Nigel Legg

Nigel Legg — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:26:06 +0000

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).

By: Brennan

Brennan — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:25:26 +0000

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.

By: Piers Fawkes

Piers Fawkes — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:09:37 +0000

Ha!

By: Matthew Nelson

Matthew Nelson — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:02:31 +0000

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.