Count to 10, to 100, to 1000 if you have to.
As I've discussed before, email is not urgent. Really.
And yet we persist in treating as such.
Add to that the experience of getting an email on a topic you feel passionately about, and it's a recipe for a communications disaster.
I'm sure we've all been there. You're on a mailing list or in some kind of on-line discussion and someone says something that, to you, is outrageous - literally provoking outrage. You then experience an urge, a desire, a need, to respond, to respond before anyone else does, and to respond strongly to put that person in their place. Perhaps you want to point out the error of their ways and their thinking, and then perhaps move on to topics such as their parentage and personal hygiene.
And that's when all hell breaks loose.
Understand that I'm not saying that the target of your response might not be worthy of all those thoughts, and more.
What I am saying is this:
Email just sucks at properly conveying passion.
It's incredibly easy to do more harm than good with a less than fully thought out reply.
Unless you write for a living and treat each email as a manuscript to be crafted, rather than a quick-and-easy substitute for a face-to-face discussion, the chances are that everything you say in that quick and passionate response will be wasted. Right or wrong, justified or not, your message will likely not be heard over the emotion of the moment.
And in the words of the title of a good book I read recently, It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear.
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The fact is most of us are not good writers. Some are, but by and large, most are not. And in all honesty, that's usually ok for email. Email is not typically that demanding a medium. Messages are short and to the point; more of a discussion than an oratory.
Unfortunately when we get passionate about something our writing skills certainly don't improve. In fact, it's usually just the opposite; out the window they go. Just when we need it, our words fail us. In fact, the result of knee-jerk passionate responses is typically to do more harm than good.
I've seen it again and again; thoughtful and important opportunities for discussion and education get lost in heated words and accusations. Often relationships are damaged as the messages turn personal, and the entire point of the original discussion is lost.
I'm sure you've seen it too.
So what's the answer? What do you do when you feel that visceral "I must respond NOW!" reaction?
WAIT
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I know, I know, you're thinking "but what if what I have to say is so important, so urgent, that it simply can't wait? I mean, the person I'm replying to is just so wrong, I can't let it go!"
WAIT anyway.
There's very little that can't stand to wait 24 hours. Really.
Here's why that delay is so critically important.
Without getting in to a lot of psychological hoo-ha, that visceral "must respond NOW" reaction is your fight-or-flight reaction applied to a medium where it just doesn't make any sense. Your emotional response and reaction are governed by a different part of your brain.
And that part doesn't put words and thoughts together very well.
Waiting is all about letting your thoughts catch up to your emotions.
I guarantee you that if you wait 24 hours you'll write a better, more coherent and less offensive reply than if you give in and write it immediately. In fact, that's typically true for any response that requires a little more than average thought. Taking a little time to think it through almost always results in better email.
I'm not talking about your changing your mind or your opinions, though of course that can happen. All I'm talking about is changing your words, changing your tone and changing your approach. I'm talking about using words, tones and approaches that simply aren't accessible to you in the heat of the moment. I'm talking about choosing words, tones and approaches that focus on communicating your message, rather than blinding the recipient with your outrage.
And the absolutely wonderful, often-overlooked but critically important side effect?
Your recipient will be much more likely to actually hear what you have to say. Yes, you might actually get your point across.
Wouldn't that be cool?
Another side effect? You'll avoid causing the discussion to "blow up" and you'll avoid providing a venue for others to pile-on. You'll avoid filling your inbox and the inboxes of everyone watching with off-topic and often vitriolic messages.
Making the world a friendlier place is a nice side effect too, but I figure that reducing the amount of off-topic email you have to deal with might be more compelling if you're expecting tools and tips from a site called "Taming Email".
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Sometimes "using email more effectively" is nothing more than "communicating more effectively". Sometimes you can make a huge difference in your approach to email, and the burden it places on your daily life not by focusing on the tools and the technicalities, but rather what it is your saying and how you're saying it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes taming the beast that is email means taming the beast that is us.
