Another vote for it depends. Plus, I think it's very important to remember that the sender's urgency or importance has less than perfect correlation with the receiver's priority -- in other words, you (sender) may feel that your mail is terribly important, but your crisis doesn't mean I'm going to feel required to deal with it. Which means that the message really needs to include some hints as to what kind of response is needed and why (with respect to the receiver, not the sender). Within that framework, email that takes a simple answer I usually try to respond within the day, just so I can forget it. Email that takes a bit of thought or study... within the week should be fine, unless there's some kind of time-critical aspect to it. And I occasionally respond to emails some time later (months, in at least a few cases). Depends.
Oh -- don't forget that email is no longer guaranteed delivery (spam filters, domain blocks, and other crud have reduced the certainty that your mail will get there) and that it certainly isn't guaranteed instantaneous -- not just the network delays, people don't always sit at their desk poised to read your deathless prose. Which combines to mean that people should not expect instant responses!
Finally, and I probably should have put it first -- make the subject line interesting and effective, structure the message for reading, and highlight the action and time desired. Just like work email. Your message is competing with the other 50 to 200 that came in yesterday (not to mention blogs, social networks, etc.). If you expect any response, it has to clear that hurdle.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmmag
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Context and content matter. No response needed.
Date: 2009-08-22 12:15 am (UTC)Oh -- don't forget that email is no longer guaranteed delivery (spam filters, domain blocks, and other crud have reduced the certainty that your mail will get there) and that it certainly isn't guaranteed instantaneous -- not just the network delays, people don't always sit at their desk poised to read your deathless prose. Which combines to mean that people should not expect instant responses!
Finally, and I probably should have put it first -- make the subject line interesting and effective, structure the message for reading, and highlight the action and time desired. Just like work email. Your message is competing with the other 50 to 200 that came in yesterday (not to mention blogs, social networks, etc.). If you expect any response, it has to clear that hurdle.