6 ms·

I suspect that the notion of managing one's inbox creates a sort of kruger-dunning effect with the inbox owner in terms of perceived productivity. I've given u

I suspect that the notion of managing one's inbox creates a sort of kruger-dunning effect with the inbox owner in terms of perceived productivity. I've given up active or structured management of my inbox : I read a few times during the work day, try to keep up, but don't get worried about missing 40% of things that come through. I'm at-ease with the notion that important communications have a way of finding me (email, slack, skype, sms, phone, twitter ...) On the flip side of the coin I have a fairly unstructured way of finding the weird and surprising and personal by management-by-walking-around, going to the occasional meetup, the dog park, hosting parties at my house, scanning HN comments and reddit.

rdiddly 10y ago
Ah, so you're one of those folks who doesn't answer my emails! Makes me pester you multiple times, by email, SMS, Skype, and if I'm truly desperate, the dog park. You're just outsourcing the work of communication onto me. When you ask for a favor I will pretend I didn't hear it! Winky emoticon.
- moxious 10y ago
  Are you sure all of your communications are so critical? There are also people who will chase others to the dog park to tell them that a CI build passed...
  - bosie 10y ago
    i don't follow how you got to the snarky "critical" if andyidsinga is ignoring 40% of emails?
    - Terretta 10y ago
      As long as they ignore the right 40%.
    - PeterisP 10y ago
      Well, because it would be reasonable to assume that 40% of a typical business user received emails are something that should be ignored. e.g. 10% of all emails are critical, important or urgent, 30% of emails aren't critical but need a response, additional 20% don't need a response but must be understood, and 40% are just "organizational noise".
  - rdiddly 10y ago
    That last example sounds like someone incompetent at email and choosing teammates, chose one who's incompetent at deciding what's critical. Oops-a-daisy. For competent adults, having the recipient unilaterally decide what's critical (critical to whom? being a key question) is insulting.
    - confounded 10y ago
      Damned autonomy, damned free-will!
    - mrexroad 10y ago
      Yet still less insulting than those who conflate importance with urgency. Guess it comes down to the "competent adults" part; I've often found them to be few and far between at large companies.
- andyidsinga 10y ago
  this is true. People pester me multiple times : and my response is to try, over time to enable them to make decisions and not ask me for permission - then if the shit hits the fan its my fault (I also get a ton of credit if stuff works) Also - the management-by-walking-around part ensures I get face/voice time with many people in my immediate circles. If you're not in my immediate circle, and you're a stranger, its very true that the dog-park might be your best bet :) I don't mean to down-play what you're saying though -- there is a level of frustration that can occur. I've just found that keeping human contact with people is the salve to not responding to emails.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  If it's not important enough to message me twice, it doesn't need a sub-week-later reply. (Obviously, some caveats about important people, routine work messages, etc.) I generally get back to people or read messages, but only when I spend an hour going through things when I have free time. I don't feel obligated to respond to random messages on their timeline.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Totally this. I also apply a similar rule to phone calls - barring few exceptions (family, expected important communication), I pick up only when I feel like it (and most of the time, I don't). If something is important, one can text me instead (thus letting me decide whether or not I consider it important too).
- echelon 10y ago
  When someone has hundreds of other requests coming from all directions, plus his or her own work, you're going to have to take the effort to contact them directly if you want help. If that isn't a compelling argument, keep in mind that many engineers have varying degrees of ADHD, and email is a huge distraction from getting what they normally do done. Every context switch is painful, so they often put it on mute.
- duaneb 10y ago
  In many jobs that's totally worth it—chances are very low a stranger will need something high priority from you, and people who work with you will know how to communicate. Email is good for a lot of things, but not for expecting processing quickly.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Thank you for pointing that out. Not answering one's E-mail is on my list of "rude things that somehow have become acceptable". It's part of individual companies' cultures. I've worked places where people can generally be relied upon to get back to you, and places where you might as well print out the message and shred it--it's not going to be responded to. The former means your working relationship with me is going to be smooth and collaborative. The latter means I'm going to treat you like a deadbeat and come around and nag you in person. I actually really hate being that "Hey, didja read that E-mail I sent?" guy, but if you're not responsive, I am going to have to pay you a visit. And I have no idea when you're in the zone and when you're just chilling. If you would just answer your E-mail, then you get to do it at the best time for you. One thing I've found helpful over the years is: When you are depending on getting a response, say so. "NEED RESPONSE BY EOD TUESDAY" Make it the very first thing in the body of the E-mail, or even make it the subject of the E-mail, since some people only skim the subjects. Another tip is to state clearly what assumption you will make about their thoughts if you do not hear back in time: "If I don't hear back by EOD, we will go forward with the proposal." EDIT: Another good tip I forgot to mention: If your E-mail is going to multiple people, and you need one or more of them to respond or take action, type their Full Name in bold and red then ":" then the specific action the need to take and by when. This helps people who only scan their E-mails, as their name stands out. Most of these tips are actually pretty obvious, it seems silly to even write them down.
  - pmichaud 10y ago
    I like your tactical suggestion at the bottom, but I wanted to say that I rankle at the top. Philosophically, I don't think a request for my attention creates an obligation to give it. Practically, if I responded to every email I received, I'd spend all my time doing nothing but responding to email, then I'd still fail by running out of time. It's actually pretty stressful. I've outsourced a lot of my email to a couple people who work for me, but there are still some that just go unanswered because the system isn't airtight. But it feels unfair to impugn me as rude for not being able to do a thing that becomes impractical to do at a certain point.
    - tinbucket 10y ago
- chris_7 10y ago
  I get tons of emails from recruiters, marketers, etc. I reply to none of them, and I think it's unfair that by sending me mail that I don't want they are implicitly entitled to labor (writing a response) from me.
  - mwfunk 10y ago
    I don't think anyone was suggesting that you should reply to them. The complaints are about people who are unresponsive to direct questions from their co-workers that require timely responses (at least that's how I interpreted it).
- wcummings 10y ago
  You're not entitled to other peoples' time. Email lets your interrupt people 24/7, if you don't take that responsibility seriously expect to be ignored sometimes. Your priorities are not their priorities.
  - softawre 10y ago
    No.. Email is async communication, unlike Slack and chat software. I send an email when I expect it to be read in the next 24 hours, but I can give enough respect for the other person's time to let them choose when to read it.
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      I don't know your nationality but around here we used to say that Americans were crazy with email, using it more or less as sms, bugging you if you didn't reply back in 5 minutes or so it felt.
      - wcummings 10y ago
        This, parent comment is literally about nagging people.
      - mrexroad 10y ago
        I'm American. I check email once a day, max. Sometimes I'll just skip it all together. If stuff starts going sideways, I'll hear about it anyway. Most in my org sit in meetings half-listening while replying to emails or looking at their laptop/phone. I stopped carrying my laptop to meetings and only use pen/paper. Really helps with both my clarity of situation being discussed, and being more sensitive to noticing when I'm not adding value. I encourage my team to limit email to once a day, as well as to decline meeting invites without a clear agenda or that don't state why they're needed.
  - fencepost 10y ago
    If email is interrupting you 24/7 then you're treating it as a synchronous medium instead of an asynchronous one. I get a LOT of requests that I respond to with "can you email that to me?" because I'm often away from my desk and working on something else. Sometimes I'll look at subject lines in the notification area on my phone, but the only messages that get looked at immediately even during the work day are ones from a small number of people and notifications of antivirus events from our monitoring system.
jimmaswell 10y ago
Why not just set up phone notifications and deal with emails as they come in when you happen to use your phone? You never miss anything that way. Works great in my experience.
- chris_7 10y ago
  That sounds like a bad way to live - I don't want anyone (and especially marketing nonsense, which is so much of the email that I get, despite me flagging all of it as spam) to be able to interrupt me at any time (still wish I could send all non-contact phone calls directly to voicemail).
- Terretta 10y ago
  Is your time and your mental flow your own, or does it belong to miscellaneous third parties to interrupt on their terms? Would you prefer to operate by your own priorities or theirs?
  - jimmaswell 10y ago
    I can just ignore the notifications if I want. It's just helpful to see what unread emails have come in when I pick up my phone.
- hinkley 10y ago
  I have a friend who believes this way. If he doesn't stop telegraphing that literally every other distraction in the world is more important than me, we're not going to be friends much longer. My boss at one company would call meetings with an agenda that he set and then step out of the meeting to answer phone calls from his boss. Then six or eight of us sat around trying to figure out what to talk about without him not there. Tremendous waste of time. Several man hours per incident. And if not for that personality flaw I would have called him a good boss.
  - jimmaswell 10y ago
    That sounds orthogonal. Without email notifications I'd be using my phone the same amount.
debt 10y ago
Management is not in your future.
- andyidsinga 10y ago
  hehe, its already here. But for the record, I don't get a job due to my organizational skills and email responses - much more about energy, tech skills and having fun ...and at least plausibly driving towards results for the project.
TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
In my experience, it would be fine to let email slide, since about 90% of the time, the person sending it asks, face-to-face, "Did you get that email I sent you?" the next time you see them. It makes almost all of the "actionable" email I get completely redundant.
kalmi10 10y ago
Hm, I just realized I work with some people like you, who seem to miss about half of my mails. Hah, from this point on, I will always call "you" if I need to inform "you" of something.
- nicky0 10y ago
  Good. You're learning.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

rdiddly 10y ago

Ah, so you're one of those folks who doesn't answer my emails! Makes me pester you multiple times, by email, SMS, Skype, and if I'm truly desperate, the dog park. You're just outsourcing the work of communication onto me. When you ask for a favor I will pretend I didn't hear it! Winky emoticon.

moxious 10y ago
Are you sure all of your communications are so critical? There are also people who will chase others to the dog park to tell them that a CI build passed...
- bosie 10y ago
  i don't follow how you got to the snarky "critical" if andyidsinga is ignoring 40% of emails?
  - Terretta 10y ago
    As long as they ignore the right 40%.
  - PeterisP 10y ago
    Well, because it would be reasonable to assume that 40% of a typical business user received emails are something that should be ignored. e.g. 10% of all emails are critical, important or urgent, 30% of emails aren't critical but need a response, additional 20% don't need a response but must be understood, and 40% are just "organizational noise".
- rdiddly 10y ago
  That last example sounds like someone incompetent at email and choosing teammates, chose one who's incompetent at deciding what's critical. Oops-a-daisy. For competent adults, having the recipient unilaterally decide what's critical (critical to whom? being a key question) is insulting.
  - confounded 10y ago
    Damned autonomy, damned free-will!
  - mrexroad 10y ago
    Yet still less insulting than those who conflate importance with urgency. Guess it comes down to the "competent adults" part; I've often found them to be few and far between at large companies.
andyidsinga 10y ago
this is true. People pester me multiple times : and my response is to try, over time to enable them to make decisions and not ask me for permission - then if the shit hits the fan its my fault (I also get a ton of credit if stuff works) Also - the management-by-walking-around part ensures I get face/voice time with many people in my immediate circles. If you're not in my immediate circle, and you're a stranger, its very true that the dog-park might be your best bet :) I don't mean to down-play what you're saying though -- there is a level of frustration that can occur. I've just found that keeping human contact with people is the salve to not responding to emails.
SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
If it's not important enough to message me twice, it doesn't need a sub-week-later reply. (Obviously, some caveats about important people, routine work messages, etc.) I generally get back to people or read messages, but only when I spend an hour going through things when I have free time. I don't feel obligated to respond to random messages on their timeline.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Totally this. I also apply a similar rule to phone calls - barring few exceptions (family, expected important communication), I pick up only when I feel like it (and most of the time, I don't). If something is important, one can text me instead (thus letting me decide whether or not I consider it important too).
echelon 10y ago
When someone has hundreds of other requests coming from all directions, plus his or her own work, you're going to have to take the effort to contact them directly if you want help. If that isn't a compelling argument, keep in mind that many engineers have varying degrees of ADHD, and email is a huge distraction from getting what they normally do done. Every context switch is painful, so they often put it on mute.
duaneb 10y ago
In many jobs that's totally worth it—chances are very low a stranger will need something high priority from you, and people who work with you will know how to communicate. Email is good for a lot of things, but not for expecting processing quickly.
ryandrake 10y ago
Thank you for pointing that out. Not answering one's E-mail is on my list of "rude things that somehow have become acceptable". It's part of individual companies' cultures. I've worked places where people can generally be relied upon to get back to you, and places where you might as well print out the message and shred it--it's not going to be responded to. The former means your working relationship with me is going to be smooth and collaborative. The latter means I'm going to treat you like a deadbeat and come around and nag you in person. I actually really hate being that "Hey, didja read that E-mail I sent?" guy, but if you're not responsive, I am going to have to pay you a visit. And I have no idea when you're in the zone and when you're just chilling. If you would just answer your E-mail, then you get to do it at the best time for you. One thing I've found helpful over the years is: When you are depending on getting a response, say so. "NEED RESPONSE BY EOD TUESDAY" Make it the very first thing in the body of the E-mail, or even make it the subject of the E-mail, since some people only skim the subjects. Another tip is to state clearly what assumption you will make about their thoughts if you do not hear back in time: "If I don't hear back by EOD, we will go forward with the proposal." EDIT: Another good tip I forgot to mention: If your E-mail is going to multiple people, and you need one or more of them to respond or take action, type their Full Name in bold and red then ":" then the specific action the need to take and by when. This helps people who only scan their E-mails, as their name stands out. Most of these tips are actually pretty obvious, it seems silly to even write them down.
- pmichaud 10y ago
  I like your tactical suggestion at the bottom, but I wanted to say that I rankle at the top. Philosophically, I don't think a request for my attention creates an obligation to give it. Practically, if I responded to every email I received, I'd spend all my time doing nothing but responding to email, then I'd still fail by running out of time. It's actually pretty stressful. I've outsourced a lot of my email to a couple people who work for me, but there are still some that just go unanswered because the system isn't airtight. But it feels unfair to impugn me as rude for not being able to do a thing that becomes impractical to do at a certain point.
  - tinbucket 10y ago
chris_7 10y ago
I get tons of emails from recruiters, marketers, etc. I reply to none of them, and I think it's unfair that by sending me mail that I don't want they are implicitly entitled to labor (writing a response) from me.
- mwfunk 10y ago
  I don't think anyone was suggesting that you should reply to them. The complaints are about people who are unresponsive to direct questions from their co-workers that require timely responses (at least that's how I interpreted it).
wcummings 10y ago
You're not entitled to other peoples' time. Email lets your interrupt people 24/7, if you don't take that responsibility seriously expect to be ignored sometimes. Your priorities are not their priorities.
- softawre 10y ago
  No.. Email is async communication, unlike Slack and chat software. I send an email when I expect it to be read in the next 24 hours, but I can give enough respect for the other person's time to let them choose when to read it.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    I don't know your nationality but around here we used to say that Americans were crazy with email, using it more or less as sms, bugging you if you didn't reply back in 5 minutes or so it felt.
    - wcummings 10y ago
      This, parent comment is literally about nagging people.
    - mrexroad 10y ago
      I'm American. I check email once a day, max. Sometimes I'll just skip it all together. If stuff starts going sideways, I'll hear about it anyway. Most in my org sit in meetings half-listening while replying to emails or looking at their laptop/phone. I stopped carrying my laptop to meetings and only use pen/paper. Really helps with both my clarity of situation being discussed, and being more sensitive to noticing when I'm not adding value. I encourage my team to limit email to once a day, as well as to decline meeting invites without a clear agenda or that don't state why they're needed.
- fencepost 10y ago
  If email is interrupting you 24/7 then you're treating it as a synchronous medium instead of an asynchronous one. I get a LOT of requests that I respond to with "can you email that to me?" because I'm often away from my desk and working on something else. Sometimes I'll look at subject lines in the notification area on my phone, but the only messages that get looked at immediately even during the work day are ones from a small number of people and notifications of antivirus events from our monitoring system.

jimmaswell 10y ago

Why not just set up phone notifications and deal with emails as they come in when you happen to use your phone? You never miss anything that way. Works great in my experience.

chris_7 10y ago
That sounds like a bad way to live - I don't want anyone (and especially marketing nonsense, which is so much of the email that I get, despite me flagging all of it as spam) to be able to interrupt me at any time (still wish I could send all non-contact phone calls directly to voicemail).
Terretta 10y ago
Is your time and your mental flow your own, or does it belong to miscellaneous third parties to interrupt on their terms? Would you prefer to operate by your own priorities or theirs?
- jimmaswell 10y ago
  I can just ignore the notifications if I want. It's just helpful to see what unread emails have come in when I pick up my phone.
hinkley 10y ago
I have a friend who believes this way. If he doesn't stop telegraphing that literally every other distraction in the world is more important than me, we're not going to be friends much longer. My boss at one company would call meetings with an agenda that he set and then step out of the meeting to answer phone calls from his boss. Then six or eight of us sat around trying to figure out what to talk about without him not there. Tremendous waste of time. Several man hours per incident. And if not for that personality flaw I would have called him a good boss.
- jimmaswell 10y ago
  That sounds orthogonal. Without email notifications I'd be using my phone the same amount.

debt 10y ago

Management is not in your future.

andyidsinga 10y ago
hehe, its already here. But for the record, I don't get a job due to my organizational skills and email responses - much more about energy, tech skills and having fun ...and at least plausibly driving towards results for the project.

TheRealDunkirk 10y ago

In my experience, it would be fine to let email slide, since about 90% of the time, the person sending it asks, face-to-face, "Did you get that email I sent you?" the next time you see them. It makes almost all of the "actionable" email I get completely redundant.

kalmi10 10y ago

Hm, I just realized I work with some people like you, who seem to miss about half of my mails. Hah, from this point on, I will always call "you" if I need to inform "you" of something.

nicky0 10y ago
Good. You're learning.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]