Previously: An Introduction to Correspondence Texting

In my previous post, I divided texts into three buckets: (1) respond immediately, (2) respond within 24 hours, and (3) respond when convenient. There, I focused on how I approach the third category (which I called "correspondence" texting), but now I want to say a couple of things about (2) and (1).

This is not meant to be a full piece, but a companion to the previous post.

A. Dealing with bucket (2)

When is the deadline for bucket (2)?

Buckets (1) and (3) are helpful to me because they have a clear call to action. (1) sets up a clear if-then statement: "if I see the text, then I will respond." (3) doesn't have the same immediacy, but I've set up a system to manage these types of texts.

(2) is more difficult, for a couple of reasons. First, the rule "respond within 24 hours" does not give a clear trigger. I can respond in time either on the same day, or in part of the day after. The "in-bounds" part of the following day varies by when I received the text, so there isn't a clear deadline in my head. Second, the rule doesn't batch to multiple responses very well, as every text has a different time-frame.

For both these reasons, I've realized that it's better for me to think of (2) as "respond by the end of the day".¹ This gives me a clear deadline to respond to the text, and makes it easy to set aside a little bit of time at the end of each day to clear any such texts.² It also naturally batches all the bucket (2) texts together.

Marking bucket (2) texts by pinning them

The other challenge with bucket (2) is that is difficult to tell which I need to respond to. With (1), I don't need to keep track; I just respond as soon as I see it. With (3), I mark texts unread and respond in a specific order (tips 4 and 5 of the previous post). Before I wrote this post, I didn't have a way to mark texts of intermediate priority.

After thinking about this problem more, I am trialing a solution: using iMessage's pinning feature.³ I used to pin people I texted frequently, like my parents, but I don't think this accomplished anything. In fact, it made it harder to respond to these people! Now, if I have a category (2) text, I pin the message until I've responded.

This gives me a visual reminder of the people I need to respond to, and helps me prioritize my texts.⁴

B. Dealing with Bucket (1)

There's a tradeoff in bucket (1) between responding immediately and not constantly being on my phone/computer.

On the one hand, there are times when someone needs to reach me urgently. E.g. a friend is having a crisis; I'm on call in a work setting.⁵ The sooner I see a message and can respond, the better.

On the other hand, if I'm constantly screening texts to see if they are important, I'm neutering my ability to focus for prolonged periods of time.

I've found one solution that works for me: phone calls. They're distinct from texts and focus on a synchronous setting, which makes them ideal for urgent questions. There are other filtering strategies, but this seems like a natural one to follow.

Distinguishing urgent calls

That being said, phone calls aren't perfect: there's no immediately obvious way to distinguish urgent phone calls from social ones. I like calling friends out of the blue to catch up, but that makes it easier to ignore a call "because it's probably just social." I can think of a couple of ways to distinguish the two:

• Call a second time if it's urgent
• Use FaceTime/WhatsApp/etc. for social calls, and phone calls for important ones
• Text ahead for social calls
• Leave a voicemail for social calls and a text (with some details) for serious ones

I'm still not sure which of these (if any) are the best norms to follow in general. Let me know if there are better strategies!

Aside: How to contact me urgently⁶

I do have a preference for what norm I would prefer my friends to follow with me, however. It's a combination of the first and fourth ideas:

1. Give me a call at my phone number
2. If I don't pick up, feel free to call me again
3. If I still don't pick up, shoot me a text saying a) it's urgent and ideally b) a couple of details

If it's social, don't do steps 2 and 3. (Or just leave a text).

Conclusion

The above tips don't really have a narrative flow, but I'll list the couple which stood out to me: Section A:

• Have my intermediate response time [bucket 2] be "respond by the end of the day"
• Use iMessage's pinning feature to highlight bucket (2) texts

Section B:

• The central challenge to responding to urgent texts is filtering, and how to automate that filtering
• Using a different medium can be one filter, but there are tradeoffs.

I also want to note, however, how much I've learned over these past two posts. I wrote the first post as a descriptive piece, but it quickly became a normative one too. I had to ask myself: How do I respond to medium urgency requests? What exactly is my policy for going through texts? When should people call me instead? Even though I have tended to describe what I already do, I've found a lot of value in making explicit statement about what I'm trying to do.

Maybe I'll try this experiment again, with a different part of my life.

Notes