This Is Not An Urgent Email

And neither is any other email.

I got my first email addresses in middle school. I had a Hotmail account and I think the other one was a Lycos.  Wow, I sound like a caveman.

I’m older now and those accounts have long since expired, but I’m sitting here racking my brain with the question: From then until today, have I ever received an email so urgent that if I wouldn’t have read it within 24 hours of receiving it I would have been screwed?

And I really can’t think of any. (There miiiiiiiight have been some business stuff along the way. Nothing comes to mind, but I can’t totally rule that out.)

But I still check my email 30 times a day because I believe everything is urgent (well…the truth is, I check that many times because when there’s something new from someone or some company I like I get an emotional pop).

Email is never urgent!  Let’s start checking it less.

You know what is much more often urgent?  Phone calls.  You and I have both received many urgent ones.

But most people these days hate getting phone calls!  They say “if they really need me they’ll leave a voice mail”…and then go back to checking their email, waiting for the next “urgent” message to roll in.

If anything answer the phone calls and stop checking email a bazillion times a day.

p.s. When you send an email, even an important one, and you don’t hear back for 4 hours or 6 or 24, you don’t think the other person is a bad person.  You think they must be kinda busy and its taking them a day to respond, it’s all good.  

So when you don’t read and respond immediately to an email, they’re not thinking bad of you either!

p.p.s. Make no mistake, as I am preaching at you, I am preaching at me.

p.p.p.s. If someone doesn’t respond within 3 days I think they hate me.  It used to be 3 hours, so I’m getting better.


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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com