Action · Act like the person you're becoming
Procrastinating on Emails: Why Do I Leave Messages Unanswered for Days?
By Editorial Team··Updated ·2 min. read
Why do you answer easy emails at once but avoid certain ones?
Easy emails ask you for information. The ones you avoid ask you to take a position that someone will read, keep and answer. That's why your procrastination is selective, not general.
I sort these messages into three types. A decision: a supplier asks whether you'll accept the new price. A refusal: a client wants a discount you don't want to give. An admission: you promised the figures for Monday and they aren't ready.
Each one takes two minutes to type. What it costs you is the commitment inside it. Your complex project feels lighter because nobody reads your thinking before it's finished. Your email gets read the moment you press send.
Is putting off emails procrastination or just a full inbox?
Look at what is left over. A full inbox delays all your replies evenly. Procrastination leaves the same few messages behind while you answer newer ones within the hour.
Run a test today: sort your inbox by date and open the five oldest unanswered messages. If most of them hold a decision, a refusal or an admission, the volume isn't your issue. The commitment is.
The delay also comes with a price. Every day adds a second sentence you now owe: the apology for being late. A refusal on day one is one line. On day six it's a refusal plus an explanation. The mechanism is the same one I describe in why you wait on decisions even when you already know the answer.
How do you start replying to an email you've been avoiding?
Give the reply a fixed slot and a one-line first draft. The slot removes the daily question of when. The single line removes the question of how to phrase all of it.
Pick 15 minutes at the same time every day, for example right after your first block of focused work. In that slot you open only the messages from your test. You write one sentence that states the commitment first: "I can't do Friday, Tuesday works." "I'm keeping the price as quoted." "The figures will be with you on Thursday."
Context comes after that line, if it's needed at all. Your reader usually wants your answer, not your reasoning.
This isn't a self discipline problem. Your discipline already carries the harder work in your day. The slot gives these replies the same structure your other tasks already have: a time and a first move.
Your next step: tomorrow, in your slot, open the oldest message from your test and write its first line before you read anything else.
Frequently Asked Questions
Because the two minutes are only the typing. The reply also commits you to a decision, a refusal or an admission, and that commitment is what you put off.