Here’s pure arrogance for you: having an auto-responder on your email account that responds back to every single person that emails you with a message that says “Thanks for your email, but I’m so busy that I only check email twice a day so I’ll get back to you later”. What kind of self-important person thinks that they’re so vital to the world that they need to inform me that they can’t get to my email right away? What kind of a person thinks it’s ok to clog up my inbox with a message telling me how much email they get?
What kind of a person rants on a blog about other people late at night? Wait, don’t answer that…
It sounds like they are trying to implement one of the GTD techniques or they just read Tim Ferriss book The 4 Hour Work Week. Both authors recommend putting auto responders on your email and only check email at appointed times. This should increase your productivity and keep the interruptions down so you can get more work done. Just a thought.
Yikes. That’s bad. I’ve seen such a message in someone’s signature, which is better than an auto-responder, but still kinda strange.
Hmm. This is a GTD method? How bizarre. I don’t mind that “I’m out of the office on vacation” auto-responders, they tell me something important I need to know that’s out of the ordinary. Telling me you get a lot of email every time I email you? Useless information. I deal with email day in and day out, 100’s of messages, with all sorts of professional PR people who’s job it is to be responsive on email, and NONE of them do this. It’s just not professional or even rational.
One good rule of thumb for an action, any action, is to imagine what would happen if everyone did it. Could you imagine if everyone put an auto-responder on their email saying “I’ll get back to you later”? Total disaster for email.
Thanks for your blog post, but I’m so busy that I only read blogs twice a day so I’ll post a witty response later.
Yeah, my pops told me about people who did this years ago. Ferris recommends setting the responder to only go off the first time someone emails you or just every once-in-a-while per person. I’ve always hated auto-responders because they also reply to spammers.