Read your email.

Email (which does mean electronic mail) has made it too easy to just ask a question directly versus look up or remember anything. It has made it too easy to just fire off a question without any due diligence spent thinking through previous e-conversations and looking up the answer.  Email has made it too easy to complain without the discomfort of conflict. It has caused documentation to be only proof of reference versus true reference.

Today, many of our inboxes are riddled with resurrected questions and rants du jour.

Remember the "mail" in email. Keep in mind it is not e-text or e-message or e-question....e-answer.  Think about the efforts once expended on our more thoughtful penmanship, and apply the same considerations before hitting “send.”

Read your email as if you are reading a letter or an article.  Remember what you read, because the person that wrote it felt it was important enough to make you aware of it. They wanted you to read it.