aaron c beals

boston.com posted a short review of John Freeman’s “The Tyranny of Email”, a book that i’ve added to my ever-growing “to read” list.

i’ll admit it: by the expectations of our society, in both professional and personal realms, i am a poor–if not terrible–participant in the email process. the issue is not the nature of my emails — i usually answer completely and as concisely* as possible, recognizing that the person on the receiving end has a busy life and as imposing an inbox as i do. the issue is that i will periodically let emails slide. sometimes you might get lucky, and i’ll respond right away… but i have been known to respond to emails weeks, months, and in the rare case years later. i don’t let them go completely–i do eventually reply–but i don’t lose sleep over delayed replies.

granted, there’s something here to be said about the increased stress level that comes with carrying around a “to do” list of old emails. i do need to get better at dealing with the emails (replying or deleting) and moving on, getting them off my plate. that said, what i really wish i could do is send an announcement to everyone who emails me saying “thanks for your email. don’t be hurt if you don’t get a reply from me in the next few hours. if your email didn’t provide a deadline, but you are expecting a reply from me in a timely manner, please pick up your phone and give me a call instead.”

i have many more thoughts on the onslaught of information, but they will come later. right now, i have some emails to ignore.

* two points on the topic of brevity:
1) i recall reading somewhere that you shouldn’t write more than 5 sentences in an email, as anything more warrants a phone call or in-person visit. i like this strategy, and would like someone to write a Gmail Labs feature to warn me whenever I exceed the limit in a draft.
2) today’s Dilbert comic was outstanding.