When I was a kid I used to watch the TV program, Star Trek. I loved Kirk's wild passion for life. I loved Spock’s logical responses to life most difficult dilemmas. In fact, I liked the entire crew of the Starship Enterprise. One of the unique episodes that comes to mind when I think of Star Trek was the episode called the “Trouble with Tribbles.” Here, you can watch a little of the highlights!
The gist of the story was this small furry creature was brought onto the ship. Everyone loved them. After all, they were sooooo cute. The problem was, at night one Tribble would turn into six Tribbles. Thus over just a few days the entire ship was overrun by the small (harmless) furry creatures threatening the very survival of all involved.
I liken e-mail to Tribbles. Years ago, when I first began receiving e-mails I thought they were so cool. In fact I would long for the next one. Almost obsessively waiting for the next “You’ve Got Mail!” to chime in (Ok, I’m really not that old to remember that – I just watched the Hanks/Ryan movie). They were, in the words of my wife who is in a counseling program, a “soother.” The problem has been that emails behave just like Tribbles. You receive one, and you get two back. You respond to those and all of a sudden your inbox has four new e-mails. Over time, the number of e-mails that you receive threatens your very life, or at least the life of the Starship Enterprise.
Eventually, the piles in my Inbox produce a low level, lurking guilt in me. Let me explain. If someone sends me a short e-mail, I can respond back to that quickly. But if someone sends me a multi-layered e-mail, often times it goes into a wait list because I don’t have time to respond to it immediately. I try to get to those more extensive responses all at one time, but oftentimes they just get buried in stacks of new e-mails coming in (listen – can you hear them? They are chiming in from the clouds as I write). What that does for me is in the back of my mind I know there are these important e-mails that I need to return, but now are dated responses. I have a default setting for all responses now that looks like this: “Sorry I didn’t get to your email in a timely manner…” The upshot of that is I carry around this nagging guiltiness about e-mails all the time. I can remember a time when I would never let my Inbox get above 100. Now if I keep it under 300 I'm ecstatic. I know this is an issue for almost everyone at this point.
So here's what I'd like to suggest…at least for me.
If you'd like to send me an e-mail please make sure it can be answered in a one layer response. I can get to those rather quickly and churn them out. If you are looking for a multi-layered response from me, the best approach would be to schedule a Skype or phone call or a face-to-face meeting. Don't get me wrong, I love to talk and communicate, but to try to do that through e-mail presents several difficult challenges. Number one: I don't type that fast so it becomes a bit of a laborious task to return long e-mails. Number two: writing longer extensive e-mails often times is a set up for misinterpretation. By doing e-mail, we exclude many of the critical communication tools we have two make sure clear understanding is arrived at.
So there you have it–my rescue plan! If your e-mail can be responded to with two or three lines then shoot me one of those, please (I still love getting them), but if it requires either a multi-layered or an emotional response why not set up a conversation with me. I would love to talk to you. If you know me, you know that that is true.
Perhaps then I can stop seeing my counselor (Robi) about my guilt issues.
