Career

The Professional: Email Overload

Being the responsible types with many things to do, we find ourselves interested in a lot of things, and yet, time doesn’t permit us to accomplish everyone one of them. And as our weapon of choice, email seems to be the only way we get around with talking to anyone and everyone. Itzy Sabo has a interesting article on handling email overload. It is in fact, what he is passionate about.

He wrote back to me within a few hours, and his very brief response says a lot:

Hi Itzy — I’m very interested in your product […] but right now I’m swamped. I may not get around to getting back to you until this weekend.

This fellow is probably busier than most of my overloaded correspondents, but his message says to me:

• Although I’m extremely busy, I am still in control of the situation.
• I have integrity and self-honesty — I don’t fool myself into making commitments I cannot keep.
• I still have time to be cordial and polite, even to people who can’t help me with my current workload.

Was this just a nice way to blow me off? I don’t think so.

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