Unimportant Email

For many people, email is one of the most distracting things at the workplace. You could be reading a long and complicated document, and while in deep in thought, a pesky new email notifier will pop up. Sometimes I turn off my monitor so I won't be distracted so much.

At my new job though, I have been getting more emails than ever tagged with a red exclamation point. Folks, an email with a red "!" is NOT going to make me read it faster. If anything, I'll treat it with less importance because it annoys me so much. No matter how important you think your email is, emphasized with the fun, little red exclamation point, trust me, it's not. Let me leave your email unopened while I go deal with a REAL emergency.

There's another button on Outlook for "low priority." That's a downward pointing blue arrow. When was the last time you got an email with the "low priority" blue arrow? I guess low priority for some people equates to "don't read." But I just never see that blue arrow. So if you must add some colored symbol fun to you email, try the blue arrow. Hell, maybe I'll even reply to it.