A Note to Readers Who are Awaiting Responses to Me
To anyone reading this who has been affected by my inconsistency or is waiting to hear back from me on a matter, thank you for your patience.
I am in the process of setting up a virtual assistant to take some things off my plate.
I understand it may seem frustrating to see me post content online when I haven’t responded to your message. I would be frustrated in your position, too.
However, these activities are processed differently in my brain. Writing blog posts (and, when I was on Twitter, tweets), is usually a stream-of-consciousness process that flows naturally for me, often all in one go. As much as those who care for me remind me that researching and writing is still “work” — and that therefore, by this definition, I work cumulatively 60+ hour weeks — it often feels like just as much of an act of self-care and creative expression.
On the other hand, processing emails, texts, DMs, and voicemails, requires a different mental state and skillset. While the contents of any particular message may be straightforward enough, and the sender or project may be important to me, when taken collectively, responding to messages requires sorting them, and in each case, identifying the answers to a good chunk of these questions:
Who or what is contacting me?
What is this about? What is the history or context in which they are contacting me?
Did I start the conversation or did they?
Am I being alerted of something I need to know? How important and urgent is it? Is it just FYI? Do I need to act on anything?
Did they seem to read the information already available through our previous messages or on my website, or is this a redundant question?
Can I respond with a template or does this require a personalized response?
What am I being asked to do?
Is this something I must do? Will something bad happen if I don’t? How long do I have to do this?
Am I going to have to say no again? How do I do that compassionately?
Is this something I want to do? How does my desire to do this fit with my other goals? Do I have time for this?
Do I need to ask clarifying questions?
Does this need to be redirected or forwarded?
Can I shoot from the hip with a quick response or does this require more thought or professionalism?
Is there a multi-step process involved? What are the steps? Is there anything or anyone I’m waiting on before I can complete this?
When must each step be done? How long will they take? When am I going to fit this in?
These questions are familiar to each of us. They were exhausting for me to write, and I bet you found them equally tedious to read, if you even read that part at all. I would have skipped over it if I were you.
So that’s why I can’t keep up with messages. It’s about the sheer brainpower to concentrate on sorting through them and processing each one appropriately. I could do this, but at what expense?
That’s why I am taking some steps to help myself. I’ve done a lot of unsubscribing. There’s lots more organizing and automating to do, and I’ll be learning to work with a virtual assistant for the first time ever. That will require a learning curve of its own, but I hope for my systems to become more efficient in the medium term future.
In the meanwhile, thank you for your patience.
