What if I offend my colleagues, partners or clients? What if I lose media, speaking or business opportunities? What if my mom freaks out over this? The truth is, any of those can — and probably will — happen over time.
But I lose opportunities every day because I’m so overwhelmed by the need to “keep up” with e-mail that I can’t set coherent priorities for where to spend my time and attention. That problem is only going to get worse — for you, me and all of us — unless we start to challenge this assumption that every e-mail needs to get a reply.
Alex has made good on her promise to be the first into the line of fire in her war on the culture of mandatory replies to email. Messages to her now get an automatic response explaining that, if you haven’t heard back within 72 hours, you should assume she’s had to focus on other priorities.
Check out her original Harvard Business Review post launching her email vendetta… and then keep following her blog for updates!
