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How to Handle Email Delay Anxieties at Work
Silence can make coworkers feel snubbed. Is there a better way to cope with email overload?
In 2017, Paige Lee Jones (@paigeleejones) aired her biggest pet peeves on Twitter: “Got an ‘out of office for the holidays’ email after responding to a requested URGENT email within 4 minutes.”
When we speak face-to-face or on the phone, it takes us an average of just 200 milliseconds (that’s 0.2 of a second) to respond to another person. It’s also clear to most of us when a conversation is over — we’ve walked away or hung up the phone.
But face-to-face and phone exchanges require both parties to be available at the same time. This is less possible today, with most of us scrambling through our days and collaborating with colleagues across multiple time zones. This, in fact, is a key benefit of digital communication — we don’t have to sync up at the same time or place to engage in a real-time dialogue. It takes 90 minutes for the average person to reply to an email, and 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message. Digital communication allows us to interact with others at our convenience, but that also means it can be S-L-O-W. If we are being honest with ourselves, most of us are uncomfortable with pauses and silences. What’s with all this quiet? Is…
