Managing E‑mail
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The Business Writing Center |
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R. Craig Hogan, Ph.D. |
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Director |
The e‑mail problem
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E‑mail has become a
persistent problem for business people.
Swarms fly out of cyberspace to invade computers daily. No sooner are
those disposed of than a new horde invades.
They multiply like locusts. |
Reasons for increase in
the
volume of e‑mail
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Three reasons the volume of
e-mail has exploded have to do with the changing climate in business: |
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E‑mail has become the
primary medium for business communication, so interactions formerly done by
phone or in meetings are now taking place in e-mail. |
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Business people are taking on
more duties in today’s complex workplace, so they must communicate more
messages to accomplish their daily tasks. |
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The duties often involve new,
complex technology that requires more communication to carry out tasks;
business is simply more complicated today.
That requires even more e‑mails. |
Another factor increases
the volume of e-mail: poor e-mail management
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The volume of e-mail has also
increased because of poor e-mail management: |
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Some unnecessary communication
is occurring in e‑mails because management doesn’t establish acceptable
uses of e-mail, and business people don’t tell each other the limits on types
of e-mail they want. |
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Poorly written e-mails result
in the receiver’s sending one or more e-mails asking for clarification and
the sender’s responses in additional e-mails to clarify. |
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Incomplete responses result in
the receiver’s sending
more e-mails asking for the omitted information; the sender must then send
more e-mails providing it. |
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Delayed responses precipitate
e-mail exchanges over why the person hasn’t responded. |
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The business person’s
role
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Organizations today generate
more e-mail because e-mail has become the primary mode of interaction,
businesses are more complex so more daily communication is necessary, and
successful use of new technologies requires more communication. We can’t change those factors. |
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However, the way we manage our
own e-mail is entirely within our control. |
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We can act to reduce the
burden! |
The answer: Manage e-mail
better
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To illustrate, we’ll follow
Derek,
a businessman, through three
e‑mail days. |
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Derek’s e‑mail days
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Monday – Derek receives 40
e‑mails.
Among them are these five: |
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1 from Aaron |
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2 from Jean |
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1 from the consultant |
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1 from the CFO |
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Deciding when to respond
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Derek has to decide when to
respond based on |
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His volume of work |
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The message in the e‑mail |
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The person who sent the
e‑mail |
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The age of the e‑mail |
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The volume of messages still in
his in-box |
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Assessing the e-mails on
Monday
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Looking at his full in-box,
Derek thinks to himself, |
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“I have a pile of work to do,
so I’ll just respond
to the e‑mails that are most important.” |
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Among the 40 e-mails in his
in-box are the five
e-mails he received today that we’re following.
He assesses which he must respond to immediately
and which he can put off so he can get to other
work he has to do. He thinks to
himself, |
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1 from Aaron – No, Aaron can
wait. He’ll understand. |
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2 from Jean – Jean will figure
that out. I’ll wait. |
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1 from the consultant – He
needs my input, but not today. |
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1 from the CFO – I’ll do this
one right now. |
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Monday’s set points
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The evaluations reveal Derek’s
set points: |
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CFO – Respond immediately to
her. |
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All the rest – Delay them. |
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The set points are unspoken
feelings or senses about how quickly he must respond to each person. “I have to respond to the CFO
immediately. I can delay Aaron.” His set point for the CFO is
“immediately.” He hasn’t yet reached
his set point for the other three people; their responses can be delayed. |
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Derek reviews the other 35
e‑mails and decides to respond right away to 9 others as well. That leaves 30 e‑mails he is not
responding to on Monday. |
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Assessing set points on
Tuesday
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1 from Aaron – It’s only been a
day. Aaron will get along without my
input. I’ll wait. |
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2 from Jean – Jean should have
figured it out on her own. I’ll wait. |
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1 from the consultant – It’s
been 24 hours. I had better respond to
him. |
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Tuesday’s set points
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These are the set points in
Derek’s mind: |
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Aaron will get along without my
input. I’ll wait. He hasn’t reached his set point for Aaron
or Aaron’s message. |
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Jean should have figured it out
on her own. I’ll wait. He hasn’t reached his set point for Jean or
Jean’s message. |
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For the consultant, it’s been
24 hours. I had better respond to him. He has reached his set point for the
consultant. It is 24 hours. |
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Tuesday’s set points
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Derek reviews the other
e‑mails he has received on Tuesday and decides that 15 of Monday’s
messages must receive replies on Tuesday, giving them a set point of 24
hours. That means he has the feeling
they have aged to the point at which the senders must receive replies or
there’ll be problems. |
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That leaves 42 e‑mails
from Monday and Tuesday in his in-box at the end of the day on Tuesday. |
Assessing set points on
Wednesday
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1 from Aaron – Aaron’s going to
go ballistic if I don’t respond. I’d
better e‑mail him. |
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2 from Jean – Jean hasn’t sent
a reminder. She must have figured it
out. I’ll wait. |
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Wednesday’s set points
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That shows Derek’s set points
for Aaron and Jean and their messages: |
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Aaron’s going to go ballistic
if I don’t respond. I’d better
e‑mail him. Derek has reached
his set point for Aaron. It was 48
hours. He has a sense that the
e‑mail can’t be delayed any longer. |
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Jean hasn’t sent a
reminder. She must have figured it
out. I’ll wait. Derek has not yet
reached his set point for Jean. He has
the sense that it won’t matter if he delays Jean another day. |
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Wednesday’s set points
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As he reviews the other
e‑mails from Monday and Tuesday, Derek decides that three of Monday’s
messages must receive replies on Wednesday, giving them a set point of 48
hours. Also, 15 of Tuesday’s messages
must be replied to on Wednesday, giving them a set point of 24 hours. |
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He deletes the six reminders
e‑mails without response. At the
end of the day on Wednesday, he has 40 e‑mails from Monday, Tuesday,
and Wednesday in his in-box. |
Here’s where Derek is
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Wednesday, when Derek leaves
the office, here’s where he is on his e‑mails: |
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He has 40 e‑mails to do
and can expect 40 more on Thursday. |
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The consultant and 42 other
people have had to delay action for a day because he didn’t respond. |
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Jean and three other people are
feeling that Derek is either irresponsible or doesn’t care about their needs
or both. |
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The others from Tuesday to whom
Derek hasn’t replied are going to feel equally neglected on Thursday because
he didn’t respond on Wednesday.
They’re going to send e-mails, adding to Derek’s in-box. |
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There are other problems
as well
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This way of handling
e‑mails causes other, subtler problems: |
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Derek is feeling pressure
because he has e‑mails that are 48 hours old. Tomorrow, some will be 72 hours old. |
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Derek has evaluated 57
e‑mails twice and five e‑mails three times. That has added to his time working on
e‑mails and frustration. |
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His in-box looks fuller every
day, giving him a panicky feeling. |
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In his haste to reduce the
number of e-mails in his in-box, he writes short, poorly written, unclear
e-mails. That results in a ping-pong
exchange of e-mails until the receiver understands the content. He is adding to his own volume of e-mail. |
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Other problems
(continued)
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Derek has increased the number
of e‑mails coming into his in-box because he hasn’t responded to some
people and receives e-mails asking why he hasn’t responded. The prodding has elevated his frustration. |
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He has implied to some people
that they and their needs are not important to him, creating stress in his
relationships. |
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He has contributed to the
culture that will put him in the place frequently of being the person
receiving late or no responses to e‑mails because that’s just the way
everybody does it. |
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Allowing crises to rule
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Derek is allowing crises to
govern his e‑mail communication.
He ages each e‑mail until it comes near to creating a crisis if
it sits any longer; then he responds. |
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The fallacy of that strategy is
that he will never be able to predict accurately which is near to creating a
crisis and which is already over the edge. He couldn’t understand a reader’s
real needs or expectations. In
reality, nearly all the senders need his responses right now. He is deciding for them how they must pace
their work. |
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Creating irritability
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His daily position on the edge
of crisis also makes him and those e‑mailing him irritable. He receives regular e‑mails prodding
him for responses and he sends e‑mails with the same pleas to those not
responding to him. |
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The result is a general
frustration with the lack of response to e‑mails. However, those suffering the effects,
including Derek, are the same people creating the condition. |
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Crisis management of
e-mails adds to the flood of e-mails
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This crisis management results
in more e-mails as people engage in frustrating exchanges about why the
responses aren’t forthcoming. The
sender’s needs may change in the interim so additional e-mails are necessary
when the response is no longer sufficient.
And the e-mails written in haste to clean out the in-box are more
likely to be poorly written, cryptic, and incomplete, resulting in more
e-mail exchanges for clarification and additional information. |
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Looking down on the
problem
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If we look down on Derek’s
problem from outside, we can see that each day, Derek will respond to around
40 e‑mails. On some days, it may
be 30 and on some 50, but Derek’s average is around 40. We know that the
average number of e‑mails he responds to remains stable because the
number of e-mails in his in-box never diminishes to 0 or increases to
100. His 40 per day maintains his
in-box. |
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On Wednesday, some of those
e‑mails he responds to are from Monday and Tuesday, but the average
remains at 40 per day. “I’m never
going to be able to empty my in-box,” he laments. |
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The solution
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However, the solution to
Derek’s dilemma is readily available.
Derek should simply decide that his set point for e‑mails is two
hours and do Monday’s 40 on Monday, Tuesday’s 40 on Tuesday, and Wednesday’s
40 on Wednesday. The average number of
e‑mails doesn’t change; the timing for doing them does. |
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That eliminates the frustration
and gives his co-workers what they need when they need it. They, in turn, will be giving him what he
needs when he needs it. No one will be
setting someone else’s work pace based on a very elusive, personal assessment
of how long the other person can wait for the response to be able to get on
with his or her work. |
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A change in set points
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Responding quickly to
e‑mails requires a personal, inner change in set points, not an
external change in systems. As a
result, anyone can decide to change the behavior and begin doing so
immediately. If everyone in the
company changed the set point for company e‑mails, everyone could
expect responses they need within hours, not days. |
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If Derek decides to start
responding immediately to e‑mails on Thursday, he will have to clean up
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday’s e‑mails along with Thursday’s, so he
will have a heavy e‑mail day on that first day using the new set point. However, on Friday and every day
thereafter, he will have only that day’s e‑mails to respond to. |
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Extraordinary days will
be ordinary
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Then, the extraordinary days
when Derek has a big project to work on or receives 80 e‑mails will not
be a burden. He may have to delay
responses for a day or two, but then he will catch up and maintain the two-hour
set point. |
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In those cases, he will
e‑mail people within two hours as usual saying he’s not able to respond
adequately, so it may take him a day or two to get back to the sender. |
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Responding quickly
enhances the team feelings of good will
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Everyone will know Derek always
responds promptly, so when he writes, “I am really swamped now but will
respond as soon as I can,” the receiver will believe it and know he or she is
not being put at the bottom of the pile; Derek will respond as quickly as
possible and isn’t making excuses. |
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Receiving prompt responses to
e‑mails tells the receiver that Derek regards that person highly. Not responding or responding after days
tells the person Derek doesn’t value him or her. In other words, responding promptly builds
good will. |
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Evaluating the contents
of e‑mails
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Responding promptly also allows
everyone to evaluate the contents of the e‑mails and respond with what
is on his or her mind about them. E‑mails containing requests the
business person believes are frivolous are normally just filed in the “later”
box, sometimes never to be retrieved.
The sender doesn’t know why a response isn’t forthcoming. |
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The tactic of simply not
responding to e‑mails containing unnecessary requests or information is
counterproductive. It creates more
e‑mails when the frustrated sender writes reminder e‑mails. The sender also does not learn to change
the contents of e‑mails in the future to reduce the overall volume of
e‑mail so the pattern continues. |
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Putting limits on
e‑mail contents
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If the business person finished
each day with an empty in-box, he or she would have to tell the person
regularly sending e‑mails containing unnecessary information or
requests what the problems are with the e‑mails. That would put the business person’s
objections on the table so the sender and receiver could deal with them. In the end, it would result in fewer
e‑mails and less frustration. |
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As the corporate culture
matured through regular discussions of the contents of e‑mails, the
issues would come up less and less frequently. Everyone would share the same perspective
and the culture would deal with the problem by evolving. Everyone would follow the same guidelines. |
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Scheduling time to
respond
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Each business person should
also set times to respond to e-mail throughout the day. Most people should start the day with other
duties, then respond to the day’s e‑mails at perhaps 10 a.m. Since few e‑mails were left over from
late yesterday afternoon, that means the 10 a.m. response would take care of
the early morning’s e‑mails. |
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The next response might be at 1
p.m. after lunch for an hour. That
would take care of e‑mails received between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The last might be at
4 p.m., cleaning out all e‑mails from the day. Anything coming in after 4 p.m. may result
in a polite reply explaining that the receiver will respond more fully in the
morning. |
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Adjusting the time to
respond
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If the three times to respond
are not enough time, the business person needs to examine the e‑mails
to see what is coming in that is taking so much time and address the problem
directly. The problem could be unnecessary
e‑mail messages or that the person is just taking on more than one
person can handle in his or her work in general. |
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When e‑mails are put off,
those important personal and work issues are not addressed. |
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Economizing on time
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The business person should set
a goal of reading each e‑mail only once. Dealing with it at the first reading means
it does not have to be read again. He
or she should respond as requested in the e‑mail, delegate it to
someone else, or otherwise dispose of it. |
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In unusual circumstances, the
reader may respond to the writer explaining that he or she will reply in more
detail at a specific time (this afternoon, tomorrow). However, business people should respond
immediately and limit the action of deferring e‑mails to unusual times
or circumstances. |
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Final words
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Business people have come to
feel that they do not have to respond to e‑mails quickly. Each day, they stop responding when they
reach the e‑mails that can be put into the “later” stack because
everyone has other pressing work to do.
They then allow the put-off e‑mails to age until they reach the
set point they and the corporate culture have established: 24 hours, 72
hours, a week, or even longer. |
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In other words, they respond
when the e‑mail is at a near-crisis stage. |
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Keeping e‑mail
viable
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E‑mail will remain a
viable method of communicating for business only if we realize that an
e‑mail should be treated more like a phone call than a letter. We should respond immediately or within
hours to every e‑mail. The
culture we have now in which e‑mails can be aged for days and some can
be put into an “ignore” stack without communicating the problem to the sender
is counterproductive, frustrating, and avoidable. |
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We just need to decide to
change our behavior. |
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The end
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The Business Writing Center |
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http://writingtrainers.com |
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R. Craig Hogan, Ph.D., Director |
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