“I don’t have time for you.”

“I’m too busy.”

“You’re not important to me.”

When you use e-mail, what message are you sending to co-workers, your boss, your clients, or your friends and family? Is it the one you want? Could it possibly be misinterpreted?

How you and others in your company manage and respond to e-mail has a direct reflection on how prospects and customers perceive you and your company. I’ll say that again, because it is important: How you and others in your company manage and respond to e-mail has a direct reflection on how prospects and customers perceive you and your company.

Most of us are literally buried in e-mail messages, voice-mail, and other information, all competing for our attention. How long, on average, does it take you to reply to an e-mail message you receive?

I’ve noticed a trend over the past year or so. E-mail has been replaced - or at least displaced - by (of all things) snail mail (postal mail) and the phone!

Yes, it’s true. If you’re one of the guilty ones, fear not - you’re not alone. In many instances it now takes longer to get a response by e-mail from someone than it does by throwing a stamp on an envelope and sending your message by postal mail or just picking up the phone and having a two-minute conversation. Sometimes it takes days to receive a reply by e-mail - or even weeks.

What type of message are you sending people if this describes you?

“Well, it takes me a long time because I am so important that I get a ton of e-mail and there just simply isn’t enough time in the day to manage all of it and still be productive.”

Okay. I’ll agree with that. But put yourself in the other person’s shoes for a moment - the one who has taken the time to write to you. Say it’s me and I write to you and don’t get a response back for five business days. What message does that send to me?

It projects one of two messages to me (or both):

“I don’t have time for you and you’re not important to me.”

“I don’t know how to manage my time and e-mail very effectively.”

Are these the messages that you really want to be projecting to your customers, friends, family, co-workers, or your boss? Probably not. Certainly not. But nonetheless that’s the message you’re projecting, intentionally or not.

Really, the way that you process e-mail and information tells others a lot about you. I’m not talking about just what operating system you’re using, what e-mail client you’ve got, and where you are located. I’m saying that how you manage information telegraphs to others what is most important to you as an individual.

Are you perhaps sending the wrong message to those you correspond with? If so, here are three things you can do to stop sending the wrong message:

1. Start managing your e-mail better.
I don’t care who you are or what line of work you’re in, there are two things that cause everyone to experience e-mail overload. You can read about them in my ongoing series called “Escaping the Riptide.” The two are “Flow” and “Selectivity.”

As e-mail comes in, do one of three things with it:

Take action immediately if a reply will take you 60 seconds or less. Writing short(er) e-mail messages is a great habit to get into anyway as it will save others a ton of time. It will also means that your messages are far more likely to be read in their entirety and not skimmed or deleted without being read.

File it as reference information. If you know you’re going to need it later on to refer to or find, file it. Get it out of your inbox and into your searchable archive system. What? You don’t have an archive system? Get a Gmail account or two, and then read this article and set one up today.

If it requires a reply that will take you longer than 60 seconds, schedule a block of time to reply to it. If it’s going to be a few days, reply with a brief message that lets the sender know that you received their message but that it may be some time before you are able to reply as you wish to give it your full attention. You can use the Signatures feature of most e-mail programs to create a pre-programmed response or template for this purpose. Suggest to them that if it’s urgent that they reach you by phone and provide your direct line. Most people can get a lot more done in a 3-minute phone conversation than they can by composing and reading a lenthy e-mail message.

2. Pick up the phone and just call the person.
Or schedule time on your calendar to call them. It never ceases to amaze me how many people still don’t put their phone number in their e-mail signature. In this day and age everyone is buried with e-mail. If you don’t provide your phone number - or at least a voice-mail number - in your e-mail signature, you’re only doing yourself a disservice. If you don’t put it in your signature because you don’t want to be solicited, get a voice-mail number to use. K7 is a free service that - provided you use it at least monthly - will give you a free voice-mail number that will convert voice messages into .wav files and send them to you as e-mail attachments. It’s a free and easy “Gatekeeper” if you need one.

3. Block off a chunk of time each day to check e-mail and stop checking it every two minutes.
Yes, while auto-checking e-mail is quite addicting, it is also a productivity killer.

The Takeaway

Even if someone is not a priority to you, make them feel like they are, even if it means sending a short note to let them know that you’ll be replying as soon as possible. If you’re using the FIFO (First In First Out) method of replying to e-mail, stop using it. That’s one of the reasons why your inbox is so cluttered right now. You’re receiving more messages than you have time to process. We all are. Welcome to the Digital Ocean! Surf, swim or drown. The choice is yours.

More in my next article…

I hope you found this tip useful. If so, please send a friend or co-worker the link to this article!

Reprinted with permission from Adam Boettiger’s Digital Ocean Newsletter. (Copyright 2004 - 2005, Adam Boettiger, DigitalOcean.cc.) To subscribe to Adam’s free newsletter on managing e-mail overload, time management, and managing life in a digital world, visit Digital Ocean.