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Good morning. This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is to respond to emails, even if you can't give an answer yet.

People want to know that you have received their messages and will deal with them.

Letting them know that that is true can ultimately save you time.

Today's tip, like some others this week, comes from Laura May Martin's new book, Uptime.

She works at Google as the company's productivity guru, coaching executives to be more efficient

with their time. In her book, she notes that the

frequent productivity advice to check email just a few times a day doesn't really work in a

corporate environment. Many people's jobs require them to see email more often than that.

Plus, no one likes collaborating with a person

who doesn't respond to email, Martin says. It's just frustrating. And if you are working with someone

non-responsive, it feels like they are putting their desires over the need for the team to move along.

And, more importantly, she writes, a lot of inefficiencies in email come from people

checking back in or bumping up an email because they haven't heard back from someone.

If you don't respond to an email,

it usually ensures you'll get another email.

Now, if you don't respond to that,

another email is then followed by an instant chat

to get your attention,

...