Email / text messages / IM / Twitter – how quickly should we respond?
January 19, 2009 | 3:27 pmHow many of you are old enough to remember when handwritten letters were the main written communication tool?From letters, we went to faxes, then to email, then to Instant Messaging, then to text messaging, and finally to things that are so fast, like Twitter. And in theory, all great advances in technology. Right?
Right. I mean, c’mon, this is so much better than having my mom call me every day saying “did you get my letter? what’s wrong with your postal system?”
So email came along and changed everything. Suddenly, delivery was instant. But we could still claim that we hadn’t “checked our email”, this would buy us response time (a day maximum).
But now we have twitter and text messages, and things are getting even faster.
Here’s my question. Is it because the delivery method is getting faster, that we have to respond right away? And if we respond right away, aren’t we just saying to the sender that we’re available, 24/7? Is that healthy?
Even the busiest gurus agree that we should slow it down, see Chris Brogan’s post “Be Realistic About Time“. Manage people’s expectations. Don’t answer right away.
Try it out. I’m sure you have 1-2 people who email you constantly. Even if you read their email, leave it in your inbox. Wait an entire day (i’m serious) and respond to them the next morning. If they text message you to ask you if you received the email (yeah, cuz that makes sense!), don’t answer. It might take a few times, but they’ll get the message.
Do you agree? Is this a good tactic? Are you someone that is overloaded and wants to slow it down? Or do you thrive on the amount of communication you receive?
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