Is a response within 24 hours acceptable?
It used to be a response within 24 hours is good enough to any email
With the rise of social media platforms and instant messaging, it is expected to be responsive all the time
Some people pride on their capability to respond within few hours any time of the day (night)
This habit can be detrimental to ‘Deep thinking’, which is what essentially we are paid to do
A human brain can focus only on one thing at a time in order to ‘think deep’
Also there is a switching cost from one task to the other. It’s not like flipping a switch
Going back and forth between different things can make you feel more exhausted
And ‘reduce’ your productivity since you’d not be able to hit the ‘deep thinking’ zone on 2x to 10x your mental capacity
I feel a ‘within’ 24 hours response from a ‘select few’ contacts on important conversations
And an ‘whenever possible’ response on communication from other contacts and non-important topics should be the expectation
Try spending more time daily thinking deep and less switching and doing shallow stuff
Lessons from “Deep Work” – Cal Newport
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