How fast should we reply to emails?
Datum: 2024-10-07 10:22
How swift should one be in terms of responding to emails? There is no, at least not to my knowledge, objective, universally correct answer to this question. On the contrary, I see a variety of norms and standards concerning what is considered a reasonable amount of time before an answer can be expected in the different industries, organizations, and businesses I work with. In some cases, there can even be a different expectation from one department to the next.
For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the “Done!” podcast:
Worthless worry
Still, many constantly feel” behind on their emails”. I meet a lot of people who feel bad about answering much later than they think they ought to. They probably feel this way for no good reason, since those who feel stressed out by their email are often the ones who tend to overrate other people’s expectations on them in general, including how fast they are to respond.
But just to make things clear and reduce any potential stress, it is a good idea to make it completely clear how fast ”people” in your context and company are in terms of answering and what the expectation is so that you can set your level of ambition consciously and based on facts rather than assumptions.
Do this
If you, like I, think it is a good idea to find out and clarify if you are responding to emails at an acceptable rate or not, then do this:
- Look through the emails you have received in the past 1 – 2 weeks and look for those that were responses to emails you initially sent.
- For every one of these responses, calculate how many minutes it took the recipient to answer your email and enter these response times in a spreadsheet.
- When you have compiled a long vertical list of the number of minutes it took people to respond, calculate the average response time.
- There. Now you have a rough estimation of how quickly people you usually email with respond to emails (we will leave other and more advanced analyzes of the data for now).
- Now it is your turn to determine what you feel comfortable aiming for when it comes to responding yourself. I am guessing you are a more or less ambitious person and therefore will set a benchmark that means answering a little faster than most of your correspondents.
Or, perhaps you are relieved to find that you were much too harsh on yourself and can now be more lenient with yourself without feeling bad about it? Or, perhaps you draw some other conclusion? - From now on, you can rely on the little empirical investigation you did when you start to feel stressed out over emails again and know that as long as you are managing to reply within the timeframe you set for yourself, you are doing alright. You are at least as fast as others in your vicinity are on average.
No worries or cause for concern?
If you set a timeframe for your responses to other people’s emails based on data and facts rather than your assumptions, you will know when you can give yourself some slack and when there is an actual cause for concern and you should get moving.
Instead of feeling as if the emails are constantly ”hanging over you”, you decide (at least to a greater extent) when to deal with your unread correspondence and when you will do other, more important, things.
What’s your way?
What is your personal ambition when it comes to how quickly you respond to emails? Do you have your own personal benchmark or target to lean on and use as a reference when prioritizing? Email me and share your thoughts and ways.
(By the way, do you know the seven rules of e‑mailing etiquette which simplifies your e‑mailing?)
Want more?
If you want more tips on how to create good structure at work, there are many ways to get that from me - in podcasts, videos, books, talks and other formats.