Do not work (check email) when on holiday, if you do then you're not on holiday.
@gtdtodd
Жыл бұрын
Hi - yes, I agree that whether we check email on holiday is a personal choice. Some people choose to disconnect completely, while others find that in order to fully relax they prefer to do an "emergency scan" of email from time to time.
@janosbornemisza1807
Жыл бұрын
I actually kinda understand this as a principal (though I’d never have used it for an external reply) Turning the question around, how should I as the person who’s been away for possibly a few weeks supposed to ‘psychically’ know the status and relevance of that email to YOU after two weeks? It could be viewed as aggressive in tone, but at least it’s clear as to status When back from holiday I tend to find 80% emails rendered irrelevant by passage of time 10% were relevant but have been clearly dealt with in the interim (e.g. by the ‘if urgent please contact…’ person in the out of office reply) 5% look relevant but when queried they have been dealt with (and the person never sent a follow up to say it was now handled) ..so very few are still ‘live’ issues on return
@gtdtodd
Жыл бұрын
Hi there - yes, there is a tension about the freshness of emails that are in your inbox on return, absolutely. My sense though of the breakdown of percentages is not anywhere near yours (perhaps I need to take longer holidays!).
@jschraitle
Жыл бұрын
My experience with that is there are systems is the following. There are system generated e-mails as well as mails by no-reply mail addresses which don‘t care about whether I delete my mails. But it is up to me to experience the consequences if I have deleted and with that ignored a call for action. Therefore, I don‘t use the e-mail on holiday policy.
@cstoomey
Жыл бұрын
Rude and immature
@starwork715
5 ай бұрын
I find this extremely unprofessional. While it's perfectly acceptable to share that a response may be delayed due to volume upon your return, just deleting what could be critical information or inquiry is ridiculous, rude, and disrespectful of the sender. Email is a standard means of business communication. Wonder if they emptied their mailbox straight into the shredder upon their return, too.
@RobertPeake
5 ай бұрын
I like the idea of set up where emails received get automatically sent to the printer, deleted from the inbox, and that printer is then hooked up to a shredder on the output feed. I could see it in as a modern art installation with a placard reading "sign of the times"
@blankaszecsenyi
Жыл бұрын
It would be appropriate to say that something like “sorry for the inconvenience, but due to the nature of my work, , I receive such a volume of emails and expect that most requests will be dealt with by the time of my return - I will delete all messages and ask you to resend your query on xzy date if it is still actual”
@gtdtodd
Жыл бұрын
Hi Blanka - as you'll see from the other responses here, you're not alone in your perspective. I'd never do that though, even with the language you suggest. Still seems like I'd be on the wrong side of assertiveness, bordering on aggressiveness. Also, of course, if someone is familiar with the tactics we suggest for dealing with email backlog in GTD this should of course be less of an issue!
@douglaskurn
Жыл бұрын
I couldn’t disagree with this more. By sending the initial email you are the one making work. Why should the recipient be expected to make extra work for themselves by going through a load of emails that are out of date on their first day back? My wife is a nurse and I urge her to do this, so that she can spend the first day back dealing with clinical issues not emails. If I receive an auto reply like this (regardless of whether they say they will delete it or not) I will add a note to a tickler file for when they are back, so I can decide if I need to contact them again at that point.
@gtdtodd
Жыл бұрын
Hi Douglas - many thanks for your note. While I understand your hesitation about the "freshness" of email and the possibility that after your holiday a received email might not be relevant, I don't use email as a replacement for a messaging service, so my preference is to assume any emails that were sent to me are likely still relevant. Re: your comment about "making work", I suppose an interesting comparison would be to physical mail - if you got letters while you were on holiday, would you just bin them when you got back because the senders had been "making work" for you?
@OliverGassner
Жыл бұрын
I a way this says: "I have lost control over my mail but as you are far better organized than I am I trust you to get back to me when I come back and you don't happen to be on holiday." So let's consider it a compliment ;) What I would do is do a 'timed resend' of the mail on the third day the person will be back from holiday and a reminder (waiting for) to check with them after 2-3 days after that ;) Like "Hope you had a great holiday and came around to have a look at my email I re-sent you on ..." ,or something like that. After all, we have to live up to the great trust we were given here ;)
@richardcomber
Жыл бұрын
This raised a thought with me that I feel some struggle with. Communication is a two part process - just because something is sent, doesn't necessarily mean it is received. If someone says 'Did you see my communication?' it is increasingly likely the answer might be 'no'. With calls, emails, WhatsApp, MSTeams, Linked-In etc etc there are sometimes just too many sources of incoming comms to stay on top of them all. Some of the people I work with are much more selective about what they actively 'hear', and happily tune out of their in-boxes... I suspect messages like the one you received might be increasingly more common... If we're sending comms and it is important it gets 'received', then maybe we all need to think more about how we send it, and accept some of the responsibility if it doesn't get through.... ? Is the person on holiday truly obligated to 'hear' everything that went on in their absence? Maybe in our over busy world, in this case they were just being truthful in saying that it won't be read?
@gtdtodd
Жыл бұрын
Hi Richard - great to hear from you! Hope all's well. My take is that if we evolve into a world where we can't have the expectation that the recipient will see something we've sent, then we'll likely spiral into an incredibly inefficient whirlpool of chasing, and chasing, and more chasing - leading to stress, lack of trust, and, possibly, more burnout. I completely understand the fact that a lot of people feel like they're overwhelmed, but as good GTDers our response to that is 1) are you working as efficiently as you can, and 2) if so and you're still getting too much info to handle, then you need to have a hard look at your horizons (projects and areas of focus in particular) to see if they're realistic. What can I delegate? Which projects do i need to move to someday/maybe? And frankly, if I can't make it all work to my satisfaction, then am I in the right role?
@christian_a_uk
Жыл бұрын
One of the most important and central points here, is that email shouldn't be something that has an expectation of immediate reply. So many people still live out of their inboxes to define work and thus also build awareness among others to email them, thus a self perpetuating problem of overflowing inbox
@gtdtodd
Жыл бұрын
Hi - yes, I couldn't agree more. We've found that it's helpful for teams to have a conversation about what expectations are re: email response times. It's also key that people know what is agreed around escalation if expected email response times aren't quick enough in a given situation.
@AnnMcPherson-l1t
Жыл бұрын
I remember receiving this about 7 years ago and I thought it was so clever I saved it. At that time no one would put an out of office message like this out there: “Thank you for your email! I am on vacation. Vacations are not for checking email, so I won’t be doing that. Fortunately, we rarely encounter life and death situations in the world of charitable giving, and aren’t we all glad for that? If you think I’m checking email because you just received an email from me, that is only because I figured out the pixies that send emails on a schedule. Really, I’m not checking email.”
@gtdtodd
Жыл бұрын
Hi - yes, I like that too! My sense is though that we have two different issues here: whether we check emails on holiday (totally a personal choice, as far as I'm concerned), and what we do with the backlog we have on return.
@AnnMcPherson-l1t
Жыл бұрын
I have a simple answer to that. I have my external out of office say I am back a day later than I actually am so that I can get caught up with colleagues and my inbox(s) without having the pressure to respond to clients.
@arjanbroere
Жыл бұрын
Love it :-) If I send an email and get and OOO I would like to retract the email and look for another option or when someone returns send a new mail, maybe with different content given that we are a couple of weeks in. And people that get an OOO mail and solve their question in another way often don't send an 'it has been solved email'
@gtdtodd
Жыл бұрын
Hi Arjan - good to hear from you. Hmm, you're very generous with your time it seems to me! My expectation is that once the email has been sent the ball is in their court. But, of course, if it's an email I would expect a response to at some time I'll be tracking a waiting for and will chase appropriately later.
@arjanbroere
Жыл бұрын
@@gtdtodd Well, it does take more time for me to be forthcoming in email communication. I hope that it gives me a position to be more critical on the quality of emails I get. We do sell Streamline Certified in which I hope responsibility for the quality of the communication goes further than hitting send and letting the others figure it out
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