Your Matter Isn’t Urgent…Don’t Flag Your Email

This isn’t a website-related rant but one that hits home for many heavy web users, nonetheless.

Most people take issue with the sheer number of emails they get. Those of us who spend a lot of time online get inundated with way too many messages, especially when you throw social networking notifications into the mix. A friend picks his nose and three social media websites instantly notify me.

My inbox is more flooded than a menstrual cycle victim during Hurricane Ike.

Some people (like myself) simply deal with it, and others have solutions such as reducing outgoing mail or reducing their email reliance all together.

But my problem isn’t with the amount of email, but with Microsoft Office’s little red exclamation point starring me in the face.

The geniuses at Microsoft thought adding the ability to mark an outgoing email message as “Importance: High” would be helpful. Yeah, it’s about as helpful as teaching sign language to the blind.

Even the brains behind Crystal Pepsi, the Babe Ruth trade, the Michael Richards Show, Pets.com and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s agent thought it was a bad move.

Unless someone is dying, please don’t consider your message worthy enough to sport the exclamation point.

Are you a surgeon in the middle of an oophorectomy and needing to fire off a quick question? Are you in a skydiving freefall with a chute more twisted than a Stanley Kubrick flick?

Tagging your email message as urgent reminds me of a little boy in kindergarten who’s just dying to answer the teacher’s question. He raises his hand but it’s not enough. He jumps up and down and says, “Oh, Oh Oh! Pick me!”

Have an urgent matter? Pick up a phone or walk two cubicles over.