I’m bad at answering emails. After all, it’s so easy to procrastinate. “I’ll get to it tonight,” or “what difference is a few hours going to make?” are just some of the convincing arguments I regularly make to myself.
I really liked this line on developer Kenny Meyers‘ contact form:
I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
That simple sentence guarantees two things:
- Kenny won’t procrastinate when answering emails, since a few hours will make a difference.
- People are more comfortable emailing him, since he’s made email slightly less asynchronous.
By making a public promise with absolute numbers, you’re forcing yourself to adhere to it. Using a relative time frame such as “as soon as possible” affords endless procrastination- “24 hours” does not. This technique isn’t limited to just email, either. You can use it for workouts (“3 miles a day” rather than “exercising daily”), blog posts (“new blog post every day” rather than “regular posts”), or making plans (“by the end of the week” rather than “soon”)- basically, anything that involves some sort of self control.
Does it work? I’m not sure, I’d have to ask him. I’ll know by this time tomorrow.