Professorial E-mail Sorting: Do not reply to an e-mail message if any of the following applies: • It’s ambiguous or otherwise makes it hard for you to generate a reasonable response. • It’s not a question or proposal that interests you. • Nothing really good would happen if you did respond and nothing really bad would happen if you didn’t.

This advantage is true of most automatic processes: eliminating unnecessary coordination does not just reduce frustration, but also increases resources to invest in the activities that really matter.