Like you I spend a bunch of time every single day working through my inbox, answering emails, sending emails, reading emails, deleting emails. I’ve shared my personal inbox management system before so you can go ahead and read that if you missed it but the fact is that you and I spend a buttload of time there.
Which means, naturally, that there is a literal cost of real resources that we’ve allocated to it. I emphasize real here because some people have not ever thought about this and are making many people’s lives very miserable, like mine.
The next time you send an email, not just to me, but to anyone, consider how much time you are literally asking them to commit to reading it and what it might cost them, not just to directly respond to the email with a decent and thoughtful response but also what you are asking them to sacrifice in terms of their other responsibilities and priorities.
It makes me even reconsider how “important” the emails that I send out really are.
I was reminded of this just yesterday as an individual sent me a long email asking for my advice about Google Adsense (something I’ve already shared about in length) but specifically it’s application and optimization in Tunisia.
This email would have personally required an incredible amount of research and study so that I could answer his questions as they related to monetizing against click fraud in the tunisian technology culture.
Personally I would have deleted the email immediately but in a rare move I told this person quickly that this was more than I could answer in an email and if they wanted more professional advice I could skype with them on a per hour consulting contract.
This person then insulted me with their response. I hate when that happens. I’ve historically “outed” this ignorance by publicly posting their email for all to see but I stayed my hand on this one; this person just hasn’t really considered that his email may actually be asking that I give up a significant amount of my most valuable resource.
There is a literal cost of email and I fear it’s robbing us all of valuable productivity.