Lately, I've been increasingly bothered by inaction....Emails, more than anything, seem to spark this fervor of frustration inside of me. Sometimes I send an email, I know its received, and then nothing ever happens in response...ever. Did it fall off the face of the web-earth? And please don't tell me it went into Spam...that's a totally lame excuse (even if its true). With all the ways we communicate with people, Email has just lost its value as a MUST-RESPOND-TO item. You get email notifications about Facebook messages, comments on your status, Twitter followers, random emails that don't really need a response, mass forwards, and on. To make matters worse, we take our email on the road and then sync it with our computers at work...so if I've read a message quickly on the go, its certainly been taken care of...right?
Actually...that's almost never the case.
A good rule of thumb I try to employ across the board is to make sure that not one email that warrants a response slips through the cracks...not one. I do this by marking all my email messages as unread that still require a response. My boss Craig uses a different method - leaving all email messages that require action to remain in his inbox, while those that do not need a response get moved elsewhere. The point isn't to use a specific method, rather, its to have a method.
In addition, I also use a 24 hour rule. If I've received the message during the work week, I've got to get back to that person within 24 hrs. Same day is really what I'm shooting for, but the ultimatum is 24 hrs.
Getting a handle of your emails is something few do well - especially if you're someone who receives large numbers of them on a daily basis. Manage them well and people will notice. You will standout from the masses.
And if you get tired of email, you can revert back to the original medium...
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