If you are anything like me, then your email inbox is stacked to the roof with old and unanswered emails. Yes, I am one of those people that does not bother to clean up the inbox and answer emails promptly. Well, it’s not that I am not bothered to answer my work-related emails, that would be very rude and unprofessional of me. But there’s always a lag built in.
I cannot tell you how many times I have received an email and answered it right away, only to receive the second response a week later. It’s almost like how traffic jams start: the first car follows up quickly, the second a little delayed, the third a bit more delayed, and then finally all these lags add up to standstill traffic in the back. In this case it just adds up to communication inefficiency.
I’m not going to play innocent, I have done this countless times as well. My email answering policy is somewhat to blame. Like 25% of Americans, I don’t read work-related emails after I’ve clocked out. I simply answer them as soon as I get back to work.
Is this surprising? Well, it’s great for worker sanity to see that 25% of people have never sent a work email after 6pm. Check out this infographic for more stats on who responds to email right away and why.