Less can be more

This is more of a time management issue than one directly related to the inbox but it will help you get more things done in less time. So, here’s the scenario… You receive a message that is approximately 800 words long (yep, I’m being arbitrary here) but when you boil those 800 words into serious content, the sender has just used that many words to present you with a question that requires nothing more than a “yes” or “no”. What’s your response look like?

Seriously, have you ever struggled with the idea that you have to respond to each message in detail? I’ll have to admit that I used to have a problem with those one-line email responses. If someone took the time to type me a lengthy message, I felt like I had to respond with at least a minimal amount of detail. And while I’m on the subject, how about the message that requires action on your part, to which you reply back to let them know that you’ve completed your part. At which point they fire back a “Thanks You”. Do you feel obligated to send them a “You’re welcome”?

What we need is a completely agnostic system for dealing with email. It shouldn’t be based on nuances, exceptions, and guilt. Truthfully, once you get really fast and ruthless at processing the crap (OOPS, how about “misc. stuff”) and benching the runners-up, you’ll actually have a lot more time to write the long personal email message when you want, or need to do so.

Thanks,
Roger

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 10:40 am and is filed under Managing Your Inbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.