Daily Thanks

I'm not a fan of the "thank you" email. I'm not talking about actual thank you notes where the recipient really deserves some gratitude, but the emails that consist entirely of "thank you" and nothing else, particularly when they are sent to a broad distribution, yet almost no one receiving it actually did anything. I mean, we all do things all the time, but I often say thank you in the email where I'm making my request, in advance, hoping you will fulfill your side of the bargain. Similarly, if I've filled my side of things, I don't really need a "thank you" email back.

Maybe if it's a new relationship, or the ask was big. But 99% of the time, I'm deleting a "thank you" email unread.

That was almost an issue today, as I got thanked in the first line of something, and then asked for something else a few lines later. I almost missed it. Had I gotten the email on my phone first, I really might have deleted it quickly.

So I'm making it a policy that if I really want to say "thank you," I'm going to find a way to say something more. I've been saying "thank you for checking" for a while now, and I like how that feels. But if I can't figure out something more than that to say, I'm going to try to curb the double thanking. It might be Thanksgiving soon, but it's certainly not Thanksgiving daily.