Friday Question #66
How long do you take to respond to an email? Or rather, are you INCREDIBLY back-logged on personal emails, like me?!
At work, I make sure I ALWAYS respond to emails directed to me with in a day, if not within the hour. But when it comes to my personal emails, it seems to take me much longer to respond, especially if the email is highly personal chit chat, which a lot of mine seem to be.
If it is something crucial, or quick, I will respond right away. But something about reading a long email, and writing a long response back… tires me out? Or something? I love exchanging long emails back and forth, but I want to give them the thought and concentration they deserve when I respond, and I feel like I rarely have the time to do that. So they just build up and build up and build up… and I have an email box with 30+ “marked as unread” messages, so I avoid it…
It just makes me feel bad. I feel bad that I am running around writing posts, leaving comments, and living my life, but not responding to emails right away. I’m trying though. And I almost always respond back (because it’s kind of rude not to ever respond at all!).
Themocracy
Mine’s up HERE!
I am horrible about remembering to respond. I often take time to think about what I am going to write and then have thought about it so much I think I have actually already sent the email! I think your idea of marking them unread is a great one, one that I am going to now steal. I really stink at responding to email right now. I read every single one and mean to reply and if it is just a quick question or really really important I do respond right away but otherwise I am horrible at remembering!
I am totally in the same boat as Tori and would add that I’m doing it to a lesser extent with blogs as well. It’s like I wish there was a way to press a button that says, “I read this and I am thinking about it but I just don’t have time to write the kind of response that it warrants.”
And then I let the e-mails accumulate and then the WORST is when I need to ask someone something important and I’m afraid to e-mail them because I haven’t written back yet to their last email. Ugh!!!
I try to write back as quickly as possible most of the time so that the pile-up doesn’t happen.
What is really sad is that what we’re talking about–personal chit-chat–is usually accomplished in face time. And unfortunately, the interwebs has grown so popular because most of us have so much less face time to spare. 🙁
I pretty much respond right away unless I am avoiding them or not at my computer.
I am bad at responding if I dont do it right away, I forget about it…I need to use outlook more often and flag emails, etc.
I suck at responding to personal email. And I have a Blackberry. I’m a terrible friend.
Not too bad with email… usually within the day.
I used to be OBSESSED with making sure I answered all emails within a few hours of getting emails…and I never, ever closed an email that needed a response without responding.
Now, I am lazy. I try to remember to mark stuff as “unread” if they need action, but I am finding myself missing more and more deadlines. I have just not been into it lately. I WILL catch up with everyone the week after Memorial Day. I WILL.
I respond to most emails fairly quickly, especially if it’s a short message from a friend. Longer “I haven’t heard from you in forever!” type e-mails though. Um…try a week+.
I can’t stand a cluttered inbox, be it personal or work e-mail. I have to clear it out. Drives me nuts when I have an e-mail with a long string of follow-up messages that I can’t get rid of because it’s not complete yet.
If it pertains to work or extra jobs, I respond within a day if possible. I’m not at my computer through the workday so it’s always in the evenings or on weekends. I’m horrible, horrible at responding to my blog comments. If it’s a personal email, it might take me a few days. It really depends who it is, although that’s awful!
Phew. A lot of your comments made me feel better, which was just what I was looking for. Ha ha!
It depends on how much time I have to read my many emails I get and how much more time I have to respond to them. I don’t want to just sit through the list and write some random response. So normally, I will reply back within the day, but it may be sooner. There’s times during the day when I’m not busy that I will respond throughout the day.
Normally, I get all of my personal email in the morning while I’m fixing breakfast. It’s when I’m the least interrupted, believe it or not.
martymankins – I was trying to catch up yesterday and I felt like I was doing that – just writing random reponses. It felt awful. Maybe I should find a good time for it like you have!