

Ask HN: How often do you reply to emails/voicemail/text? - dannyr

I had a discussion with an acquaintance recently. I have made a mission to reply to anybody who emails, texts, or leaves me a voice mail. My argument is that if somebody makes an effort to establish contact with me, I should at least acknowledge it.<p>I'm also doing this because I would hope that when I email others, they would also reply.<p>His argument though is that it's unreasonable for people to expect a reply. People get busy, etc.<p>So HNers, how often do you reply to emails, sms, etc? Do you ignore emails a lot?<p>My practice is that I reply to an email thread at least once. I also tend to ignore emails from headhunters especially those that looked like they were auto-generated.<p>Follow-up question is, would you email somebody who probably won't give you a reply?
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JournalistHack
I keep 1 _high priority_ email account that beeps me with any new message. And
several others with assigned purposes.

This enables me to stay (best I can) focused on "code alone" ( plus HN for
breaks ;).

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DanielStraight
I reply immediately to emails that require a reply at work. Within a day at
home. Texts I generally reply to within minutes whether they require a reply
or not. Voice mails I never reply or listen to. If I get a voice mail, I look
through the missed calls, guess who left it and then seek them out either in
person or by calling them back. If checking voice mail wasn't THE worst UI
experience on earth, that might be different.

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dannyr
I agree. I rarely check voicemails but return calls.

Maybe a visual voicemail or transcriptions would help.

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vaksel
I reply to pretty much all emails I get from real people, but then again I
only get 3-4 per day that need a reply. If I had thousands of emails to reply
to like some people, I'd probably be a lot more selective.

As far as emailing someone...if I'm emailing out of the blue, I pretty much
fire and forget. If I get a reply great, if I don't, no worries.

