Let's discipline our digital communication

The messages that didn’t add any value — we need some etiquette

This week alone, I sent 3 messages from the metro that are pure uselessness and stole time from my team:

1. (10 mins before reaching the office) "I will send you the access when I reach the office"
2. "Hey"

(seriously, the rest of the message didn’t send as I lost connection and my colleague was waiting for the rest…)

3. (At 17:59 on Friday) "For Monday — how can I export all conversations with attribute “PS — Subject”

Photo by @szolkin on unsplash

While it’s not a criminal offence, these 3 messages were useless at the time of sending. They took people away from their tasks. Their brains wondered what I wanted, and made them wait for something which was not coming straight away. A lot of attention occupied for little value.

We need better digital communication discipline. I need better discipline.

The fundamental rules of digital communication etiquette

1. Before pressing “send”, think. draft, format, reread, and then send
2. NO CAPS LOCK (unless you are angry and you want to show it)
3. When there are > 10 messages on a…