When You’re Not Sure, Ask For Clarification

Dorie Clark is a communications coach, business strategist, and speaker. She wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal called The Real Reason We Dread Our Inboxes.

Now hang on— I hear you muttering, “Oh, no — not another post about The Curse of Email — !!”

Yes, it’s about dealing with email, but before you click away, let me add that it’s also a post about procrastination and how it can sabotage our reputations and careers.

Still with me? — good!! 😊

Clark lays out several scenarios that cause us to put off responding to an email. One that resonated for me personally is the email where you can’t figure out what the person wants.

So you tell yourself: I’ll have to come back and read this one again. When you finally do, it’s just as muddled as before, and you procrastinate again.

Dorie Clark’s advice: Don’t be afraid to clarify an opaque note.

Write back and say: I appreciate the background info you sent me — is there a particular question you were hoping I could answer? — some way that I can assist you?

You’re putting the ball back in the sender’s court. Hopefully that will prompt them to get more specific about what they want, so you can decide whether you want to get involved.

Other tips:

Decide what the next action step is

We often procrastinate on responding to someone because it requires a series of steps: we need to do research, check the company website, review the person’s LinkedIn profile, etc, etc.

It’s too much, so we put it off.

Clark suggests figuring out the first step and doing it now. Taking that first step always makes things more manageable.

Beware of self-sabotage

Recognize we may be sabotaging ourselves by not responding.

Perhaps someone’s inquiring about pricing without giving us enough information. Or asking if we’ll take on something we don’t have a lot of experience with. So we put off responding and tell ourselves we’re too busy.

We’re also telling the sender we’re rude and unprofessional.

Delay compounds problems

We compound problems when we don’t respond.

Someone wants to have lunch. We’d rather not, but we put off saying no. Or we have a bad feeling about a job but we’re afraid to make a mistake by turning it down.

What happens? A lot of time guilt sets in. We wind up saying yes to something and then regretting it. Putting things off makes it harder to make difficult decisions.

Not all emails are equal

Set aside time for emotional or high-stakes responses.

Some emails are more important than others. Giving final approval to something. Responding to a complaint. Breaking down an estimate, detailing tasks that might not be obvious to a client.

Flag those emails that are going to require more time and focus. Resist the temptation to dash off quick replies just so you can clean out your inbox.

Conclusion

We let email pile up because ignoring it is a lot easier than doing research, saying no, and thinking things through.

Most of the roadblocks we throw up are emotional. They pose a danger to our reputations and future success.

Start dismantling those roadblocks by applying the above tips.

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About Mark: I’m an illustrator specializing in humor, branding, social media, and content marketing. My images
are different, like your brand needs to be.

You can view my portfolio, and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Questions? Send me an email.

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