Chris Anderson has defined the problem succinctly: “We all love the power of email connecting people across continents. But… we’re downing in it.” The corollary of this, or rather one of the causes of this is that, “ The total time taken to respond to an email is often MORE than the time it took to create it.” Think of the times you dashed off a quick email to someone with a simple query. Now think of all the steps it would take to answer your email: checking on past emails; actually finding those past emails; talking to anyone else involved in the process; finding the time to sit down and, first, read your email and then, second, to thoughtfully answer it. Phew. It’s tiring just thinking about it. What’s more, if you try to cram in a ton of items in one email, it may take longer to get an answer and often the answer will have missed some of your questions/concerns. I found recently that when I wrote an email to my daughter and numbered the questions, one through five, she responded: “I like this kind of email, as the questions are easy to answer!!” So before you shoot off another email to either a friend, a colleague, a networking contact or a prospective employer, consider: Will they be able to say what my daughter did? Will the email be clear and easy to answer? Will  it make for much more work for them? Because, remember, the easier it is to work with you now via email, the easier it will be — or least hiring managers will think the easier it will be — to work with you later on… and therefore they’ll hire you!