With the proliferation of email, some people receiving over 100 a day, has it almost become useless? Can you dedicate the time it takes to seriously read and understand the emails which hit your inbox? I’m not talking about scanning the emails for the important information, but actually reading it to understand what is being said.
One of my pet peeves is receiving email asking questions which were previously answered. Not only have I answered them before, but half the time the answer is contained in the email which the person decided to reply to.
Surprisingly this does not occur in personal emails between friends and family, it mostly occurs in business, where you would think the emails are actually be read. Not only is it annoying to have to answer questions which have already been answered, but it also takes time away from the current work to read the incoming email and reply, causing a delay (albeit slight) in getting the final product to the client.
My proposed solution is to create a standard reply, stolen from watching too many court shows. Reply:
OBJECTION! Asked and Answered.
Feel free to use this whenever the need should arise or let me know if you’ve come up with a better way to deal with this issue.
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