Email: embrace asynchronous communication
I sent you an email an hour ago, why haven’t you responded yet?
Well, because emails are an asynchronous communication medium. Asynchronous? Yes, asynchronous. Like paper mail, text message on your smartphone or carrier pigeon.
Asynchronous means you have no guarantee about response time. It has nothing to do with technical purpose, even less than with text mail (or carrier pigeon). Email are asynchronous because it will wait for a active decision of the receiver side to be treated.
Maybe your receiver is staring at his/her inbox, waiting for an email to pop, to treat it immediately. But she/he is more probably doing something else, and will visit his/her inbox somewhat later.
And this is a great thing. Oh, well, you won’t have your answer immediately. But think about it: you’ll have an answer when the receiver has the time to handle your request serenely. It won’t be read and responded in the middle of something else, with an half-ass response in the hurry.
The email is part of the asynchronous media. The great advantage is that their are performed when the receiver wants, not when the sender wants. As a consequence, the request is handled at a time dedicated to it. the receiver is in the mood of actively working on a good quality response. He/She won’t have to interrupt him/herself in the middle of something else, so the request will be less stressful for his/her mind. There is no mental charge due to a context switching between tasks. That’s more relax.
Even better, the email can be postponed in a tasklist/todolist/getting things done queue/whatever. It will be far less tiring to handle than a synchronous request.
After all, almost all IT systems are based on asynchronicity to be more efficient. Why can’t humans follow the same way?
