021 GID Better Never Than Late
Modern Mentor
Macmillan Holdings, LLC
4.3 • 726 Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2008
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We all want to respond thoughtfully when someone writes us about a major life event. But what if we don't ever do it? Questions go to getitdone@quickanddirtytips.com or 888-WRK-LESS. Like what you hear? Help us out by writing a review at iTunes!
Modern Mentor is hosted by Rachel Cooke. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Stevea Robbins here. Welcome to the Get It Done guys quick and dirty tips to work less and do more. |
| 0:09.9 | Today's topic is dealing with those email messages that you feel deserve a long response, |
| 0:14.7 | but somehow you never make the time to do it. A listener writes, |
| 0:19.5 | I've noticed a recurring problem. Someone will send an important message. |
| 0:23.4 | Because I'm busy and because I feel their message deserves a thorough and thoughtful response, |
| 0:27.7 | I never get around to answering. When someone takes the time to write a long email about some |
| 0:32.0 | life-altering event, it seems harsh to respond with a curt. Sorry to hear you have cancer, |
| 0:37.0 | or your house burned down, bummer. I know it's even worse to not with a curt. Sorry to hear you have cancer, or your house burned down, |
| 0:38.7 | bummer! I know it's even worse to not respond at all, and I always intend to set aside the 30 |
| 0:44.4 | minutes it takes to craft a proper response or find the perfect card, but somehow I never get to it. |
| 0:50.2 | How can I get to the point where I admit the 30-minute response is unrealistic? |
| 0:58.0 | Well, listener, the quick and dirty tip is to be gentle with yourself. |
| 1:05.1 | Keep an email folder of messages to reply to and use that folder to help yourself stay honest. |
| 1:09.2 | In the future, change your medium and take action immediately. |
| 1:12.5 | This was a great question. Even I suffer from this problem. In fact, you wrote this question six weeks ago, and it stayed in my |
| 1:16.8 | great question file until this morning. After all, I wanted to answer it thoughtfully, giving it |
| 1:22.4 | all the attention it deserves. And therein lies the problem. We hear something from someone we love, and we tell |
| 1:29.4 | ourselves the most caring response is to send a letter or card, thoughtfully written, with perfectly |
| 1:34.8 | crafted words. Maybe that worked in the 19th century, but things moved slowly then. It could take a |
| 1:41.4 | week just to drive to the nearby 7-Eleven and back. And, since they didn't |
| 1:45.1 | have cars or driving, and the 7-Eleven wouldn't be built for another 83 years, they had lots |
| 1:50.1 | of free time to craft careful communication. If this happens to you a lot, you probably |
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