Not Taking the Necessary Time for Business E-mails

As you can imagine I e-mail probably a bit more than most folks. Being I do WordPress Consulting for a living, between that and my E-mail Etiquette endeavors I receive over 500 e-mails each day.

The only way I can keep on top of this many e-mails is to remain as organized as possible. (You can follow my system by reading my article on E-mail Organization.)

One thing I see from those who contact me or ask my assistance is that rather than respond to my questions point-by-point, (see how to How to Down-edit Your E-mail) they’ll top post and pop off a response in generalities. 9 out of 10 times these quickie responses do not answer all the questions asked or the e-mailer assumes what they think I meant or required, because they didn’t take the time to read the e-mail in it’s entirety. “Too busy!”

What this causes is additional unnecessary e-mails and back and forths that wouldn’t have occurred if the original e-mail had been carefully read and responded to point by point. This creates the need to spend more time, that apparently we don’t have in the first place, to respond to additional e-mails that could have been avoided if one were to read the e-mails they receive and ensure they respond point by point.

Part of maintaining clarity in your e-mails is to take the time — make the time — to ensure you are answering all questions asked and that you understand the e-mail as a whole before you hit Reply and start typing simply because you are in a rush.

To just respond by hitting reply with your questions, when in fact the answers are actually in the e-mail you didn’t take the time to read, certain doesn’t bode well to you being perceived as someone who will be easy to communicate with.

Take the time to respond in detail the first time and you’ll find in the long run that you save time!