Your out of office is on until 2025. But you still have a bit of anxiety about heading back to your inbox?
Last year I made a pledge for 2024 to NEVER start an email with ‘apologies for my later reply’ or ‘sorry for my delay in replying’. Setting boundaries is key for your self care. Check out Cards for Self Care here.
But this post about getting a Spotify style Wrapped for your email account struck a chord. Are we kind to ourselves in our email communication? Do we really need to start communications with an apology? The way we communicate has changed because of email but should it.
Just because you CAN respond immediately but it doesn’t mean you SHOULD. Responding immediately usually generates another response and so the inbox grows. Is a meaningful email that you’ve considered the content of but you send the next day or even (the horror) a few days later not much better than email tennis. You are not late in responding, you are contacting them when you have had time to consider the email content along side other projects. You are showing care and consideration by reading the content fully, considering it’s impact and then communicating. I think this is more polite than a quick email with little consideration of the content.
I found banning my email apologies difficult at first. How do you start an email if its not grovelling away like a Victorian urchin in a Dickens novel. Well managing emails should be one of the ways you manage your self care in 2025 so here are some tips.
Setting boundaries
Starting with the opening line, it’s perfect to say ‘Hello, thanks for your message’. No need to say that you’re ‘late’ in responding. Once you get comfortable with that then it’s worth taking a step further and think about how and when you access emails and respond to them. We often think of email as ‘free’ communication. It’s free of a time burden as its quick and free of a cost burden as theres no stamp to buy. But there is a time and money cost to emails so think about valuing YOU when you are facing a full inbox.
I’ll return to the topic of keeping a log of spending out time and energy as if its a currency but for the start of 2025 lets start with eradicating apologising for responding to an email. You are worth more.