I emailed/texted you, why haven't you responded?

How many times have you received a text or email and even before you have a chance to read it, the phone rings, and it is the person complaining that you haven’t responded yet. Understanding that not everyone can immediately stop what they are doing to read an email or text is something everyone needs to understand.

If the message is urgent, and you need to know that the person has received the message, that is one thing when you should phone shortly after the message has been sent. If the message requires someone to check something or even respond, there needs to be time given for the person to respond. You do not know what the person is doing the moment that the message was received. IN some cases, if you are sending a message to a work account after hours, it may not be read until the next day. If you are sending it to a personal account, it may not get read during work hours.

This respect also goes to when you are messaging someone on a social media platform. The person may not be on the platform when you message them, and if it shows that they are online, they may not even be checking that platform when you send the message. The other thing about social media platforms is a lot of people are only on them occasionally, so trying to get a quick response through that type of platform doesn’t work.

For a lot of individuals, checking messages either texts or emails are done at various times during the day and not as soon as each message arrives. I know that if I were to check every message as soon as it was in my inbox, I wouldn’t get anything done. Understanding that emails or texts are not an urgent means of communication and even if you end up calling someone about the message make sure that you have given them time. In a lot of cases, individuals even turn off the pop-up that email systems provide letting them know that they have received a new email. The pop-up is a distraction when you are trying to focus on getting actual work done.

So, next time you send a text or email to someone, give them time to see the message before you either send another text or email or phone them. Yes, if it is urgent that is one thing, but otherwise make sure that you respect the person you are trying to communicate with.