--Pregnant Pauses and E-mail--

E-mail gives the illusion of immediacy. If the person receiving the message happens to be at the keyboard and happens to read your message and happens to be moved to immediately reply to said message, well, e-mail can appear to be pretty immediate. Sometimes this is not good.

An immediate reply might mean the other person might be clearing out their inbox. Or perhaps they were waiting for your message. Or perhaps they are bored out of their mind and this distraction is just what they needed. Maybe the other person is working on a different assignment or task and this brief e-mail check was a quick mental break before diving back into the work at hand.

So what does a long pause before replying to an e-mail mean? Nothing! There are an unlimited number of reasons someone might not "immediately" reply to an e-mail. Perhaps their Internet provider is having technical difficulties. Perhaps they are busy on a telephone call and (appropriately and politely) are giving that call all of their attention. Perhaps (*gasp*) they walked away from the computer to do something else. There might also be a chance that they are thinking about their reply, so that they communicate correctly and make sure the so-called "tone" (e-mail does not have tone!!!) of the message is as intended.

More than 80% of communication is non-verbal. That means (at best) e-mail communicates 20% of the real message. Because of this, people try to read too much into the choice of words in the e-mail, the "timeliness" of the e-mail reply, and sometimes even the font choice, font color, and font size. Good grief!

Also consider that (especially in business) perhaps the other person is talking or e-mailing with several other people to get their opinions, perspectives, and advice about the current situation. As more people are consulted, the delay before a reply is increased. Usually.

So what is wrong with immediate replies? Immediate replies re-enforce the impression that e-mail is immediate (or "always" immediate). Immediate replies might also give the impression that not a lot of care or thought went into the reply. Immediate replies also can confuse the other person when all of a sudden there is a long delay or pregnant pause before receiving another reply (which - remember - might not mean anything). I'd suggest you consider the implication of an immediate reply before firing it off. There is nothing wrong with focusing on the task at hand, and check e-mail perhaps slightly more frequently than you check your postal mail. (Some senior executives advocate two to three times a day as the maximum number of times they and their reports check e-mail!)