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I refuse to believe that not answering every single email within an hour is a good predictor of anything other than being glued to your phone. I think extending

I refuse to believe that not answering every single email within an hour is a good predictor of anything other than being glued to your phone. I think extending it to a reasonable amount of time, maybe a business day max, works out pretty well. Sometimes people respond really fast because they’re taking regular breaks and other times they don’t respond all evening because they’re putting on their kid’s birthday party. Even at work, sometimes very good colleagues are doing things back-to-back for hours and using short windows to do things like go to the bathroom. On the other hand maybe this is some art thing I’m too far away from to understand? Maybe really good artists to work with never need more than twenty minutes of deep focus at a time for anything?

avg_dev 2y ago
i did take some issue with the way that point was phrased as well. but, i took it a little more broadly than it was actually specified: people who are not great about communicating or make it hard for you to work with them at the outset will probably continue to be like that throughout the entirety of your working relationship. i watch some videos on the Tested youtube channel, where the host is Adam Savage, who was one of the hosts/creators of the MythBusters tv show, and he often talks about this point, and how he learned it working with Jamie Hyneman early on in his career where they would take clients, and Jamie explained this principal.
sroussey 2y ago
Artists tend to be in art production mode or sales mode. When in sales mode and doing exhibitions, etc., good ones are very responsive. They work for a a year, or maybe several, then there are sales to be had over the corse of a month or so. The work they are selling is finished. Would you work on something for years, and then when the time comes to maybe sell it — not answer the phone?
- ranit 2y ago
  People that work at art galleries are not artists.
  - vector_spaces 2y ago
    The bit in the article about email responsiveness concerned artists
  - tayo42 2y ago
    depends on the gallery, some make you work a shift if you want to sell your art there
    - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
      Not professional artists (in the UK)? Curation is a separate skill, and you're paying through the nose for the gallery's services, usually.
      - tayo42 2y ago
        it depends, but i tried to sell my paintings at local galleries and some wanted me to do things like that
        pbhjpbhj 2y ago
        Are you a professional [earning most of your money through your art]? Which country do you live in please? I've only seen the self-curation from community groups. I'm all for collectives but I'm pretty sure the professional artists I know would say it gives off budget/desperate vibes and so it's something you can't afford to do if you aspire to 'make it [big]'. {I express myself through overuse of parentheses and through runon sentences...}
  - space_oddity 2y ago
    Though they do play a crucial role in selling and promoting the art
dasil003 2y ago
This is an uncharitable take. Who said anything about an interruption every 20 minutes? We're talking about an artist doing an exhibition at a gallery, by any measure, this is a pretty significant collaboration that is in the artist's best interest and not something their getting spammed with dozens of a times a day. If you read and digest the article, the point is not to create a litmus test based on time-to-response, it's to recognize there are a lot of people to talk a big game but are unserious about achieving shared goals. If an artist is not responsive because they are so serious about their creative process that they don't have time to respond to a gallery doing an exhibition than maybe that's the right thing for what they are serious about, but it does jack shit for the gallery staffer who is serious about creating an exhibition.
spullara 2y ago
I have found that folks like Jensen, Elon, Jobs, etc answer their emails in 5-10 min. You be the judge.
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  They have EA’s that can go through their inboxes for them and highlight what actually needs a response. Hell they probably draft responses for them too
  - ponow 2y ago
    And that is so because they made it a priority for it to be so.
  - spullara 2y ago
    you are wrong. you probably think someone tweets for elon as well lol.
smgit 2y ago
All people are not alike. Thankfully. Refer Law of Requisite Variety. Some people live to please. Once you understand people are very different, the whole story turns into setting teams up such that the right people are in the right role. Ofcourse this is hard to pull off, so there is always drama in any group.
shawndrost 2y ago
This is not just some art thing. People note it in every field. It's not the only predictor; the author of Chrome reportedly did most of it offline IIRC. But it's a real phenomenon that is robust in the face of the concerns you're raising. There is a wide range of email responsiveness -- even among people who are going to the bathroom and putting on birthday parties and doing focus work -- and it is a helpful predictor.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
space_oddity 2y ago
Yep, this wouldn’t necessarily apply to everyone — especially those who balance multiple roles
Kiro 2y ago
Unfortunately it's one of those hacks that makes your look like a superhuman. I hate it but obsessively answering emails and messages as soon as possible has given me so many opportunities that it feels like a cheat code. It's nothing reasonable about it but it's just the way things are.
- nobodywillobsrv 2y ago
  When people complain about this they aren't thinking about how much they love people not answering them. Obviously not everything needs to be answered quickly all the time but the world is full of delays and waiting. Any relief is welcome.
- freefaler 2y ago
  So how does that work, can you elaborate? What is the difference if you answer in 10 minutes, 6 hours or 24 hours? Are you competing on time of response so if you're fast you're getting the deal?
  - ljf 2y ago
    I can only speak for myself - I produce exec/board materials. Often a request will go out to several people and I can get ahead by responding first. Sometimes someone will reply to me quickly and the edge I bring is properly digesting their response and then going back quickly to them with questions. Others might accept they have a reply and then wait until they are pulling the paper together to realise they are missing key data. I don’t read or action all emails instantly, but I am very aware of the ones I need to, or when I am in a period of high focus that needs information fast. In an ideal world I’d be in an office with all the people I needed around me, all with the same focus and priorities, but that is rarely the case. So to excel at my job I need to make connections fast and respond fast. (Note this isn’t just email, this is just for my communications in general.)
  - lupire 2y ago
    I remember one event vividly. Exec asked for some business information information while traveling. I replied promptly, sending a link to a webpage, within the proper process for secure data sharing according to company policy. This required exec to visit our internal website to view the information. A teammate emailed the information directly, violating policy and good data stewardship. CEO replied to teammate's email with a big group thank you for "emailing the information quickly".
bleakenthusiasm 2y ago
I read this as "answer within the hour when preparing an exhibition". If you are in full swing to get an exhibition up and running and this is the time you decide to throw yourself into deep focus work, you are probably hard to work with. I would also assume if some artist told the author "look I know we open on Tuesday, but this Friday we have my kid's birthday so from 4 to 8 I won't be easy to reach", this would probably just be silently dropped from the cou ting of how fast they respond. On the other hand, without warning going dark for 4 work day hours a few days before exhibition would look terrible if any serious question came up. So I don't think it's literally responding within the hour, but it comes pretty dang close. You have to keep in mind that being an artist creating art and being an artist setting up an exhibition are basically two different jobs and if you end up doing them in parallel at the same time, that's your problem right there.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  How long does setting up an exhibition take, and what kind of hours are you expecting? 4-8 are workday hours? And what kind of question needs to be answered that fast, but wasn't important enough to be asked several days earlier? My feeling is that there should be very few such questions, few enough that each artist can safely take half a day if they get one.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    A day and a half is slow even in software, and software doesn't have things like the example given of wanting a wall put up then asking for it to be taken down again. Sure, software does have bad communicators who change their minds, but revert is relatively easy.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      > A day and a half is slow even in software, We're talking about half a day, not a day and a half. Or really, less than half a day. > and software doesn't have things like the example given of wanting a wall put up then asking for it to be taken down again. The wall example was taking place over "weeks". If there is still an urgent question about wall-building a few days out then it sounds like someone waited much too long and that's the real problem, not the extra four hours.
itronitron 2y ago
Becoming recognized as a good artist depends a great deal on being an effective communicator about one's work. It's sort of self-selecting but it is part of the job.
naming_the_user 2y ago
You’re trying to systematise something that is more like basic human nature. It’s like trying to explain why people like attractive people from a utilitarian perspective. In the real world I just prefer to interact with people who prioritise me over other things and most people are the same.
- ponow 2y ago
  Yet some artists do believe that it's morally wrong that producing whatever they deem as good art isn't guaranteed to be self-supporting. They shouldn't ultimately have to answer to anyone else's opinion to earn a living. Which is highly entitled, and non-evolutionary.
  - naming_the_user 2y ago
    Anyone who thinks that the Universe owes them is sorely mistaken.
huijzer 2y ago
He didn't mention a timescale. Maybe it's a difference between 4 hours and 1 day? I would agree that if someone takes longer than a day to respond, then it's going to be hard to work with this person. 4 hours is fine.
gwbas1c 2y ago
I interpreted it as "artists who are reasonable people produce better art." IE, focus more on qualities like: Asking to move a wall at the last minute, needing a life counselor...

avg_dev 2y ago

i did take some issue with the way that point was phrased as well. but, i took it a little more broadly than it was actually specified: people who are not great about communicating or make it hard for you to work with them at the outset will probably continue to be like that throughout the entirety of your working relationship. i watch some videos on the Tested youtube channel, where the host is Adam Savage, who was one of the hosts/creators of the MythBusters tv show, and he often talks about this point, and how he learned it working with Jamie Hyneman early on in his career where they would take clients, and Jamie explained this principal.

sroussey 2y ago

Artists tend to be in art production mode or sales mode. When in sales mode and doing exhibitions, etc., good ones are very responsive. They work for a a year, or maybe several, then there are sales to be had over the corse of a month or so. The work they are selling is finished. Would you work on something for years, and then when the time comes to maybe sell it — not answer the phone?

ranit 2y ago
People that work at art galleries are not artists.
- vector_spaces 2y ago
  The bit in the article about email responsiveness concerned artists
- tayo42 2y ago
  depends on the gallery, some make you work a shift if you want to sell your art there
  - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
    Not professional artists (in the UK)? Curation is a separate skill, and you're paying through the nose for the gallery's services, usually.
    - tayo42 2y ago
      it depends, but i tried to sell my paintings at local galleries and some wanted me to do things like that
      - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
        Are you a professional [earning most of your money through your art]? Which country do you live in please? I've only seen the self-curation from community groups. I'm all for collectives but I'm pretty sure the professional artists I know would say it gives off budget/desperate vibes and so it's something you can't afford to do if you aspire to 'make it [big]'. {I express myself through overuse of parentheses and through runon sentences...}
- space_oddity 2y ago
  Though they do play a crucial role in selling and promoting the art

dasil003 2y ago

This is an uncharitable take. Who said anything about an interruption every 20 minutes? We're talking about an artist doing an exhibition at a gallery, by any measure, this is a pretty significant collaboration that is in the artist's best interest and not something their getting spammed with dozens of a times a day. If you read and digest the article, the point is not to create a litmus test based on time-to-response, it's to recognize there are a lot of people to talk a big game but are unserious about achieving shared goals. If an artist is not responsive because they are so serious about their creative process that they don't have time to respond to a gallery doing an exhibition than maybe that's the right thing for what they are serious about, but it does jack shit for the gallery staffer who is serious about creating an exhibition.

spullara 2y ago

I have found that folks like Jensen, Elon, Jobs, etc answer their emails in 5-10 min. You be the judge.

iamacyborg 2y ago
They have EA’s that can go through their inboxes for them and highlight what actually needs a response. Hell they probably draft responses for them too
- ponow 2y ago
  And that is so because they made it a priority for it to be so.
- spullara 2y ago
  you are wrong. you probably think someone tweets for elon as well lol.

smgit 2y ago

All people are not alike. Thankfully. Refer Law of Requisite Variety. Some people live to please. Once you understand people are very different, the whole story turns into setting teams up such that the right people are in the right role. Ofcourse this is hard to pull off, so there is always drama in any group.

shawndrost 2y ago

This is not just some art thing. People note it in every field. It's not the only predictor; the author of Chrome reportedly did most of it offline IIRC. But it's a real phenomenon that is robust in the face of the concerns you're raising. There is a wide range of email responsiveness -- even among people who are going to the bathroom and putting on birthday parties and doing focus work -- and it is a helpful predictor.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

space_oddity 2y ago

Yep, this wouldn’t necessarily apply to everyone — especially those who balance multiple roles

Kiro 2y ago

Unfortunately it's one of those hacks that makes your look like a superhuman. I hate it but obsessively answering emails and messages as soon as possible has given me so many opportunities that it feels like a cheat code. It's nothing reasonable about it but it's just the way things are.

nobodywillobsrv 2y ago
When people complain about this they aren't thinking about how much they love people not answering them. Obviously not everything needs to be answered quickly all the time but the world is full of delays and waiting. Any relief is welcome.
freefaler 2y ago
So how does that work, can you elaborate? What is the difference if you answer in 10 minutes, 6 hours or 24 hours? Are you competing on time of response so if you're fast you're getting the deal?
- ljf 2y ago
  I can only speak for myself - I produce exec/board materials. Often a request will go out to several people and I can get ahead by responding first. Sometimes someone will reply to me quickly and the edge I bring is properly digesting their response and then going back quickly to them with questions. Others might accept they have a reply and then wait until they are pulling the paper together to realise they are missing key data. I don’t read or action all emails instantly, but I am very aware of the ones I need to, or when I am in a period of high focus that needs information fast. In an ideal world I’d be in an office with all the people I needed around me, all with the same focus and priorities, but that is rarely the case. So to excel at my job I need to make connections fast and respond fast. (Note this isn’t just email, this is just for my communications in general.)
- lupire 2y ago
  I remember one event vividly. Exec asked for some business information information while traveling. I replied promptly, sending a link to a webpage, within the proper process for secure data sharing according to company policy. This required exec to visit our internal website to view the information. A teammate emailed the information directly, violating policy and good data stewardship. CEO replied to teammate's email with a big group thank you for "emailing the information quickly".

bleakenthusiasm 2y ago

I read this as "answer within the hour when preparing an exhibition". If you are in full swing to get an exhibition up and running and this is the time you decide to throw yourself into deep focus work, you are probably hard to work with. I would also assume if some artist told the author "look I know we open on Tuesday, but this Friday we have my kid's birthday so from 4 to 8 I won't be easy to reach", this would probably just be silently dropped from the cou ting of how fast they respond. On the other hand, without warning going dark for 4 work day hours a few days before exhibition would look terrible if any serious question came up. So I don't think it's literally responding within the hour, but it comes pretty dang close. You have to keep in mind that being an artist creating art and being an artist setting up an exhibition are basically two different jobs and if you end up doing them in parallel at the same time, that's your problem right there.

Dylan16807 2y ago
How long does setting up an exhibition take, and what kind of hours are you expecting? 4-8 are workday hours? And what kind of question needs to be answered that fast, but wasn't important enough to be asked several days earlier? My feeling is that there should be very few such questions, few enough that each artist can safely take half a day if they get one.
- ben_w 2y ago
  A day and a half is slow even in software, and software doesn't have things like the example given of wanting a wall put up then asking for it to be taken down again. Sure, software does have bad communicators who change their minds, but revert is relatively easy.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    > A day and a half is slow even in software, We're talking about half a day, not a day and a half. Or really, less than half a day. > and software doesn't have things like the example given of wanting a wall put up then asking for it to be taken down again. The wall example was taking place over "weeks". If there is still an urgent question about wall-building a few days out then it sounds like someone waited much too long and that's the real problem, not the extra four hours.

itronitron 2y ago

Becoming recognized as a good artist depends a great deal on being an effective communicator about one's work. It's sort of self-selecting but it is part of the job.

naming_the_user 2y ago

You’re trying to systematise something that is more like basic human nature. It’s like trying to explain why people like attractive people from a utilitarian perspective. In the real world I just prefer to interact with people who prioritise me over other things and most people are the same.

ponow 2y ago
Yet some artists do believe that it's morally wrong that producing whatever they deem as good art isn't guaranteed to be self-supporting. They shouldn't ultimately have to answer to anyone else's opinion to earn a living. Which is highly entitled, and non-evolutionary.
- naming_the_user 2y ago
  Anyone who thinks that the Universe owes them is sorely mistaken.

huijzer 2y ago

He didn't mention a timescale. Maybe it's a difference between 4 hours and 1 day? I would agree that if someone takes longer than a day to respond, then it's going to be hard to work with this person. 4 hours is fine.

gwbas1c 2y ago

I interpreted it as "artists who are reasonable people produce better art." IE, focus more on qualities like: Asking to move a wall at the last minute, needing a life counselor...