The Week In Review: May 26, 2026

Thumbs Up

I love the immediacy of text. And I hate the immediacy of text.

Texts arrive at all hours of the day on all manner of things, both profound and absurd. If I do not respond immediately, there is a very real chance it disappears into the abyss of "I'll get to that later," only to reappear in my brain while standing in the shower three days later.

I love that emails can be indexed and searched. I love that they create a documented timeline of correspondence and decision-making.

I hate that my inbox behaves like a ravenous tiger that doubles in size overnight feeding on market updates for towns I've never heard of and sales people politely "circling back."

So I was oddly comforted to read some recent recommendations on improving email response rates. Perhaps there is hope for my anxious inbox conscience after all.

Instead of ending emails with the vague "Let me know your thoughts," the recommendation is to make responding almost effortless:

1. Ask a binary question. Reduce the response to a simple choice:

"Does Tuesday or Wednesday work better?"

"Do you prefer Option A or Option B?"

"Should I proceed or hold off?"

2. Add a deadline. Open-ended requests have an uncanny ability to live forever.

"Can you let me know by Thursday so I can move forward?"

"If you can respond by the 15th, that would be incredibly helpful."

"I'm hoping to decide tomorrow. Any thoughts before then?"

3. Trigger a one-word response. Make it so easy they can answer while standing in line for coffee.

"Reply yes and I'll handle the rest."

"Just send your preferred date and I'll take care of scheduling."

"A thumbs up works too."

Up next: solving the need to text someone that you just sent an email requiring a response... Followed closely by the inevitable: "Just bumping this to the top of your inbox..."