Recommendation
In this eloquent op-ed, organisational psychologist Adam Grant explores the value of setting boundaries regarding your relationship with your inbox. After all, Grant notes, most emails aren’t genuinely urgent, and even if they were, he argues, a less-than-speedy reply should not automatically spark feelings of guilt. To avoid the burnout endemic in today’s “always on” work culture, people need to start valuing the quality of a reply more than its speed.
Take-Aways
- In today’s “always on” work culture, people feel guilty when they don’t immediately reply to emails.
- Pressure to reply speedily contributes to burnout and reinforces unfair gender norms.
- Stop apologising for not replying quickly, and make it clear how urgently you need a response when you send messages.
Summary
In today’s “always on” work culture, people feel guilty when they don’t immediately reply to emails.
How often have you received a reply to an email – or written one yourself – that began, “Sorry for the delay”? This phrase has become ubiquitous in today’s “always on” work culture. It sounds polite, but apologising for what, in most cases, is a perfectly reasonable reply time frame reinforces the problematic notion that everyone should be available for work-related matters at all times.
“How quickly people answer you is rarely a sign of how much they care about you. It’s usually a reflection of how much they have on their plate.”
Human beings are not built for responsiveness at scale. In the pre-digital days, people only had to deal with those in their immediate workplaces, communities or families. Now, anyone from anywhere can contact you at all hours via your email inbox. It’s little wonder people feel overwhelmed.
Pressure to reply speedily contributes to burnout and reinforces unfair gender norms.
The idea that you ought to reply quickly to emails, regardless of what you are doing at the time, is a recipe for burnout. Responding to every ping of your inbox disrupts your workflow and downtime. Researchers Laura Giurge and Vanessa Bohns have shown that feeling you must respond quickly to email increases stress. The more stressed you feel, the less likely you are to have a healthy work-life balance.
“Being reachable around the clock means living at the mercy of other people’s calendars. It’s a recipe for burnout. And it prizes shallow reactions over deep reflection.”
Women, in particular, often feel compelled to be highly responsive. Society tends to give greater leeway to men too busy to deal with others’ needs immediately. Meanwhile, people view equally time-pressed women who fail to jump to help others as uncaring. By resisting the idea that a speedy reply equates with how much your correspondent cares about you, you can help undercut these unfair gendered expectations.
Stop apologising for not replying quickly, and make it clear how urgently you need a response when you send messages.
Setting clear digital boundaries starts with resisting the urge to reply immediately to all emails – and to apologise when you can’t. Thank people for their patience instead. Encourage regular correspondents – co-workers, managers, and so forth – to be clear about how quickly they need to hear back when they send you a message. This information can help you prioritise your replies and, thus, cut down on your stress. Likewise, communicate your expectations whenever possible. If you don’t need a speedy reply, say so; if you have a target response time, share that.
“We’re all drowning in messages. If you didn’t commit to a deadline, you can’t be late.”
Set aside specific blocks of time for handling email, and ignore it otherwise. Remember that most of what lands in your inbox is not urgent and that a thoughtful response is usually better than a quick one. Most of the time, your priorities should take precedence.
About the Author
Adam Grant is a contributing Opinion writer for The New York Times. He is an organisational psychologist at Wharton, the author of the book Think Again and the host of the TED podcast Re:Thinking.
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