“Less than 5 minutes” email rule
During weekdays, especially tuesdays and wednesdays I will get lots of emails.
While I try to answer them all, some of them will be left un-answered for days… I try to get most of the emails replied the same day, I do this by applying my own “less than 5 minutes” rule. And most of the emails (about 80%) fall into this rule.
How does it work?
First I go through all emails, and if I think I can reply particular email in less than 5 minutes, I will go ahead and reply. But if I think the email needs my attention for more than 5 minutes, then I will select “unread” option from Gmail, so that I can reply the person when I have more free time.
What are these “less than 5 minutes” emails?
They are emails like… “I have this site, would you like to exchange links?”, the answer would be simple “okay or not interested (in polite way, of course)”. Or “How much a custom web design for a typical corporate website cost?”, the answer would be “about $800 - $1200, for a static corporate website. please send your requirements so that I can give you a detailed quote”….etc
Objective of this rule
The idea here is to reply as soon as possible to your customers, so that they won’t wait too long to get an answer for their simple questions. People who asked simple questions would expect to get faster response, while people who have sent longer emails that needs to be studied won’t mind to wait for few days or even weeks (depending on the requirement).
So far the rule has been working quite fine. Do you apply this kind of rule to your email checking? Or if you are the sender and if you asked someone simple question through email, and you didn’t get back from him/her for few days… how would you feel? what would be your thoughts about the person? would it make him/her look less reliable?
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By kjusupov on Oct 26, 2007
The days when I was on Thunderbird I used to tag my mails: important, follow-up, must_reply, etc…
These days, I’m on Mail.app (Mac OS X), and it does not have “tag/label” support, so mostly I’m using filtering into folders/sub-folders and set the particular mail “Flagged”.
Use “smart mailbox” which will search through-out all sub-folders and list all those “flagged” ones…
Another 3 “smart mailboxes” are: Today, Yesterday, Last Week
http://www.indev.ca/MailActOn_files/droppedImage_1.jpg
By Walt on Oct 27, 2007
Nice rule! Here’s a tip to upgrde it a little bit ;)
http://www.wrike.com/blog/9/4/2007/Getting_things_done_with_Wrike_saves_us_hours
My emails never get left out.
By Ades on Oct 27, 2007
Good stuff Kamchy, thanks!
By Mulamaker on Oct 28, 2007
I read the spam folder first… lol