It’s true. The average professional gets around 120 emails in her inbox daily. That’s on top of DMs received through social media and business messaging apps like Slack. How does she keep up with it all?

Earlier this year, our TGC editorial team read computer science professor Cal Newport’s book A World Without Email. Newport makes an evidence-based case that all those incoming messages leave most people anxious and unable to perform substantive work. What we need, he argues, are workdays driven less by inboxes and more by clear objectives and workflows. I’ve benefited from Newport’s counsel, but one piece of advice he gives is counterintuitive. When you’re answering email, he says, slow down. Communicating all the details the first time eliminates time-wasting back and forth. 

Caroline Stoltzfus gives believers another reason to decelerate in our quest for inbox zero: “If we take care to see our emails less as tasks and more as interactions with real people, our written words can become a small conduit for the grace of Christ.” When I read these words, I was convicted. How often do I reply to an email in as few words as possible (or ignore messages altogether) instead of writing a helpful, kind, and thorough response? How often do I choose optimization over seeing email—yes, even email—as an opportunity to build a relationship? 

In an increasingly remote and online work world, let’s see our digital communication as a way to serve fellow image-bearers. Let’s think of the time we take to review our phrasing before we press send as a way to honor people for whom Christ died. 

Because you’re worth my time,