The Importance of an Empty Inbox

Sometimes people give me a hard time when my inbox is empty. I’ve heard statements such as “well, you must not be that busy then.” I’ve also heard statements like, “well we must need to give you more things to do.”

It was interesting to me one time when I found that my inbox was empty and I commented on Twitter and Facebook. One person who was giving me grief commented about my lack of being busy. He seemed to wear it as a badge of honor that his inbox was overly crowded with unread messages.

The reason I found this interesting was the fact that he was a vendor of mine who had an unread email for me for about a week that was important to be taken care of. He was proud that his inbox was so full yet I, as a client of his, was frustrated that he was not responding to my email.

I personally take pride in an empty email inbox. As a business owner, a businessman, and simply a person who respects others, I feel it is important that I effectively manage my email inbox. In today’s business environment, people have an expectation to communicate in ways that are efficient for them. Some people prefer a quick phone call, some people prefer social media, and some people prefer an email to be answered in a reasonable amount of time. When I receive a request via email I take it as my duty to reply in a reasonable amount of time so that the person who is contacting me feels confident that I care about their needs.

I believe it is the height of selfishness to have a communication medium provided to a client or even a friend but then not use that medium to communicate back. Why have a telephone if you’ll never answer it? Why have a contact form on your website if you never respond to it? Why have an email address if it takes you two weeks to clear out your inbox?

An empty inbox shows your consideration of the communication needs of others. If your inbox gets too full, then perhaps you need to find a better way to manage it so that those who want to communicate with you will know that you care about them more than your busy work.