In keeping with our annual tradition, this Samhain Eve we’re reflecting on everything that’s happened this year. It’s been a long year.

Samhain is the end of the old year and the beginning of the new; a perfect time for reflection and introspection. This post is different from all the other posts in our blog; it’s a glimpse into the whole of our year, not just the bloggy bits. We don’t give a lot of context here, so feel free to ask if you wish.

In November, Pace had fun with Ruby and Rails while working half-time as C9’s CTO. (She had not so much fun being a sysadmin, though.) Pace planned an elaborate anniversary surprise for Kyeli, and it turned out wonderfully. We spent the day in San Antonio in a five-star hotel, walking up and down the Riverwalk and fully enjoying each other. Kyeli invented the word “pocketopus,” meaning a pocket-sized octopus, and made a promise to be more reliable. Pace shared her transition story as an offering for the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

In December, life was good. Then our poly triad broke apart (although obviously Pace and Kyeli stayed together). That’s enough said about December. We don’t want to go into detail.

In January, life continued. We got rid of a bunch of our old stuff, and Pace read Stumbling On Happiness. She noodled about honesty vs. predictability and intent vs. outcome. We began the difficult process of helping our son deal with the separation.

In February, we moved to a two-bedroom apartment in the same complex. Kyeli acquired the most amazing cat ever, Phineas Nix. He has extra toes and ambition to take over the world! Kyeli did a powerful ending ritual and cast her old wedding ring into the sea. We did an Imbolc ritual together to dissolve old bonds and begin new ones. Pace AAAed a couple of 8s and briefly experimented with not playing one-player video games. Kyeli realized how silly Groundhog Day is. We learned that passion is water, not fire, and Pace started planning Kyeli’s birthday surprise!

In March, Pace walked a labyrinth to find out who she really is. We celebrated Kyeli’s birthday by taking an overnight vacation to Galveston. It was the best day ever, but it could have been the worst day ever. We had a $300 dinner at Clay Pit to celebrate Kyeli’s birthday. Kyeli did lots of self-work, had lots of epiphanies, and grew a whole lot. She also had a car accident and re-injured her shoulder. (She’s pretty okay.) We played a bunch of Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Pace narrowly avoided getting scammed by a jerk named Gary.

In April, we left C9. We read The Four Hour Work Week, which greatly affected our plans for what to do for our next business and how to do it. Pace started dealing with the depression she had been feeling since (and months previous to) the divorce. She acquired a spiritual womb and energetic ovaries. We went to Poly Big Fun and gave our first Usual Error presentation with just the two of us. It went well! Pace played Rhem 3, and Pace and Kyeli played Myst Uru. Kyeli learned how to futz — how to build up her general problem-solving skills — and began fully coming into her own self. The plans for Kyeli’s birthday surprise were delayed but continued inexorably. (:

In May, Kyeli’s birthday surprise finally came to fruition. We flew to Boston to visit friends in Philadelphia, and on the way there we learned that 300,000,000 frightened people trump liquid. We came home to find the door to our apartment removed (they replaced it later). Pace made a list of concrete things to do to help with her depression. Improving her eating habits helped. Caffeine helped. Mourning helped. Forgiveness helped. Becoming the Insurance Agent of Divine Justice didn’t really help, but it was cool. Pace played through all of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, and we bought Samus, our new gaming desktop. After 20 grueling hours, we managed to wipe Vista and install XP on it. Kyeli learned that knowing the worst possible scenario makes everything less scary. Pace had an epiphany about motivation. She started two new side projects: an ontology of video games and Meme Wars, an online CCG.

In June, Kyeli helped Pace let go of her belief that the true nature of the universe probably sucks. Pace finally integrated her headspace and heartspace aspects by loving and accepting all parts of herself. She continued making progress with her depression and gave up searching for a perfect role model. We gave our cherry wood table away and we went back to being vegetarian. Kyeli got the new Alanis CD and avoided the yearly zombie uprising. Kyeli was incredibly emotionally scarred by The Happening. We started thinking about motivational alchemy and habits.

In July, we decided to make the Usual Error Project our career! (This is when things start happening really quickly.) We settled on the exact naming and capitalization. We set up the company as a general partnership. We set our goals and priorities. We decided to self-publish the Usual Error book. We worked hard on the second draft of the book. We rearranged our environment to support our goals, our passions, and our happiness. We joined Toastmasters to improve our public speaking skills. A couple of friends lent us $22,500, and Pace AAAed her first cata. Kyeli stopped being really hard on herself and started Twittering. We acquired another kitten, Gryphon. Kyeli started exercising every day and made big changes to her diet. She learned about accomplishing long-term goals.

In August, Pace proposed to Kyeli. She said yes! (We wanted to get remarried with just the two of us.) We set a date: November 20, 2009. We finally came up with a satisfying answer to our question about the ethics of communication. Pace’s obsession with commas and quotation marks began. We lost $900, and it was AWESOME! Megan made an awesome logo for the Usual Error Project! After a lot of hard work, we finished the second draft of the book. We played through Braid with our family up in Dallas. Pace allowed herself to believe that wealth, fame, and success come easily to her. She played through Persona 3. We realized that it is our ethical imperative to help make the world a better place. We spent two full days at Austin Java to finish up the third draft of the book, and we did it!

In September, we lost $8000, and it was no problem. We merged all our other blogs into paceandkyeli.com, pulled over some relevant posts from LJ, and began the 30-day blog-o-thon, all because Steve Pavlina believed in us. In Pace’s Ice Breaker speech at Toastmasters, she announced that she would be quitting her day job. We played lots of Spore and learned the importance of taking 5-minute breaks. We continued noodling about love-based motivation vs. fear-based motivation. Meanwhile, ten of our friends were busy editing the third draft of the book. The embiggenation-induced growing pains began. We reconciled our goal of helping people with our goal of making money. We became experts at lots of things, and deeply regretted using the word “expert” instead of “competent” or “skilled”. We made our first podcast and (unrelatedly) made it into the top million websites! We thought about buying a duplex with Kyeli’s mom and brother to convince them to move to Austin, but ended up delaying those plans. Pace learned the difference between being 99% honest and being 100% honest. A former world champion of public speaking gave a talk at Toastmasters, and we learned some useful things from it. We sang a song about milk, covered our coffee table with post-it notes to figure out our business plan, and improved our organization skills.

In October, we figured out how to address the issues that come up with the “it’s always okay to talk about how you feel” policy. Steve Pavlina made Pace cry and Kyeli got Pace pretty pink flowers, got down on one knee, and proposed to her in front of everyone. Pace had a lovely 31st birthday! Kyeli bought a beautiful left-handed bass guitar and took Pace to see Alanis in concert. Kyeli struggled with overwhelming stress and self-neglect but is now on the upswing. We helped a friend with some problems she was having negotiating with her partner. Marty finished up the illustrations for the book, and Pace finally got over her punctuation neurosis. Megan, Kyeli, and Pace stayed up until 3am working on the new Usual Error Project website. It’s beautiful! Pace co-authored an e-book with Seth Godin’s triiibe! Her case study was about bi poly kinky pagan gamer geeks. We launched our phone-in course, Communication for the Holidays. Pace reflected on how being an entrepreneur is like being transgendered. After going through 1500 pages of our editors’ suggestions, we finally finished the fourth draft today! Next comes layout and design, then we’ll be ready to publish!

Pace wrote a poem to reflect on the old year and bring in the new. We’d like to share it with you.

a year of change and growth
a year of pain and hurt
the best year of my life
(not the happiest)
but the best.

a choice, a change: divorce.
a choice, a change: grow past old patterns, old crutches.
a choice, a change: shell breaking, comfort forsaking.
a choice, a change: a path with a heart.

this is my change. this is my choice.

fully awake
i enter this new year
this new life
wide-eyed
with delight.

Lately I’ve been looking for more great blogs to read, and I’ve found a surprising lack of correlation between the blogs whose content I love and the blogs that have tons of readership. In a just world, you’d think, the best content would get the most readership, right? (Accounting for taste, of course.)

Chuck Westbrook is doing his part to make the blogosphere a better place. (: He’s proposing what is basically a book club for blogs: a few interested readers get together and read a different blog together for a couple of weeks each. I’m happy that he proposed a connection paradigm solution to the problem, getting people together in a community and talking to each other, instead of a technical Web-2.0 “vote and tag” type of solution. It sounds like fun to me — I’m in!

Also, thanks to Jen Louden for letting me know about it!

Kyeli in front of a teeth whitening kiosk at the mall

Teeth whitening, I thought to myself. Isn’t that something usually done in a clean, sterile dentist’s office, not a kiosk in the middle of a crowded mall?

I don’t care how much it costs. I don’t care how white these smiling people’s teeth are. I want to hear from the trustworthy dentist who says this is safe, clean, sterile, and professional. I want to see a picture of a dentist saying that this setup is just as good, just as safe, and just as professional as her setup at the office. Then I want to look up and see that same dentist on site, taking care of her patients.

When Havi was looking for an acupuncturist, none of their websites answered one of her big questions: “Will I have to take my clothes off?”

I don’t care if it’s fast, effective, and affordable. I want to know if it’s safe.

The marketing folks likely made the usual error. The question “Is it safe?” didn’t enter their minds, so they didn’t address it in the marketing for their teeth whitening kiosk. Heck, I may be making the usual error too. I may be the only one who would think about that, and so it’s not worth it for the marketers to cater to me if I’m just one person. To me, it feels like you’d be doing a medical procedure in the middle of a mall, which seems like a bad idea. Maybe most people think of it more like a teeth cleaning or brushing than a medical procedure.

My point is that it’s important to know your audience. This applies to everyone, not just marketers. If you’re having a conversation with your partner, if you’re in a meeting with your boss, if you’re talking with a friend — they have different concerns than you do. They’re coming from a different place. They care about different things. They’ll react differently than you would in the same situation.

Put yourself in their shoes. It will go a long way toward avoiding the usual error and fostering clear and effective communication.

I’ve already gone on about our friend and illustrator, Martin Whitmore and his awesome business model. Today, I’m inspired by him again!

In addition to his awesome work on the Usual Error book, Marty also has many other awesome projects. Today, I’m inspired by my own guest appearance in his crazy zombie vs stripper webcomic, Tasty Flesh.

As I mentioned before, Marty is working on a community commission (now closed). The more you donated, the more cool stuff you got, all the way up to input in the drawing and a majorly awesome hug. I haven’t gotten my hug yet, but I know it’ll be awesome.

When he emailed his mailing list, way back at the beginning of this community project, it came with a special bonus offer: anyone on the mailing list who donated a certain amount within the first 48 hours got all the cool stuff and also got a cameo in his webcomic as a zombie.

He rewarded his biggest fans for being his biggest fans by giving them an offer no one else would get, making it limited, and making them feel special and cool and appreciated.

Now, I am somewhat ambulothanatophobic (afraid of the walking dead, i.e. zombies), so the idea of being drawn as one of them wasn’t so appealing to me. Did that keep me from being an early contributor? Nope. Why? Because I know Marty, and I know that he would work with me to reward me in a way that would be rewarding rather than horrifying.

And he did. We talked about it, and decided on making my cameo be less walking dead and more mysterious.

Marty (and his partner Megan) is brilliant. He constantly comes up with interesting and cool ways to support his art so he can keep producing it. He rewards his fans honestly and genuinely. He consistently inspires Pace and me, and we keep stealing his brilliant ideas (with permission, of course!) and implementing them in our own Usual Error Project. I’m proud to be his friend and business partner.

I’m also delighted to be in the strip today (though I suspect I became a meal for those other zombies). It’s amusing and beautifully drawn. Check it out!

We want to reward and appreciate our biggest fans, too. If you join our mailing list, you’ll always be the first to know about everything we’re doing (without getting too many emails, we promise!), get big rewards and lots of appreciation – and we might even offer awesome hugs, too!

I’ve found some new and excellent blogs and RSS feeds to read lately, and I want to share them with you. I used to bookmark sites that updated their content regularly or occasionally, but now that I learned how to use Google Reader, it’s so much easier. I can add more blogs and feeds without it taking up a lot more of my time or annoyance. In the past month I’ve gone on a feed-adding spree! Here’s what I’ve been enjoying.

I’d also love to hear what you’re reading and enjoying!

Us

• Pace and Kyeli (duh)
• Comments for Pace and Kyeli (duh)
• link:http://freakrevolution.com/ – Google Blog Search (so we can see who’s talking about us (; )

Friends and/or Awesome People We Like To Support

• Martin Whitmore | Youngstown Crab Company Project (I have no idea why this shows up as “Youngstown Crab Company Project” for me. Marty is our favorite artist, and has very little to do with crabs.)
• Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog (This is that guy we talk about all the time.)
• Virtual Magpie (the equivocal adventures of Megan M.)
• worldmegan
• Seth’s Blog (This is that guy we talk about all the time. No, the other one.)
• The Fluent Self (This blog is all about milk.)
• Small business marketing ideas – Starting a home business | IttyBiz (Naomi kicks ass.)
• Oliver Danni’s Healing and Energywork Site
• Words Words Words

Fun Stuff

• The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks (This is hilarious!)
• Slow Wave (A webcomic where he illustrates people’s dreams that they email him. It’s awesome and ridiculously funny.)
• Bob the Angry Flower
• Speed Demos Archive
• XKCD
• Astronomy Picture of the Day RSS Feed
• LOL BOTS
• LOLTHEORISTS
• Slashdot: Games

How To Be Awesome

• Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog
• The Fluent Self
• Zen Habits
• Productive Flourishing
• Comfort Queen
• Persistent Illusion
• The Art of Nonconformity
• Idealist Coach: Strategic Life Coaching & Consulting
• Soul Shelter
• GET RICH – The thinking woman’s guide to more life, love and luxury

Communication and Relationships

• The Simple Marriage Project
• The Polyamorous Misanthrope
• Said What I Meant
• communicatrix

Business, Small Business and Ethical Entrepreneurs

• Small business marketing ideas – Starting a home business | IttyBiz
• Success in Sweatpants
• The Heart of Business
• The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
• erica.biz – Erica Douglass shows you how to build an inspired, successful business.
• Social Media Power

What The Heck Category Do I Put These In?

• Slashdot: Science
• Write to Done
• 200 Nipples Blog | New Shirt Notice
• ct2 (I think this is the good stuff from Kevin Kelly)
• Lifehacker: Roundup
• A design and usability blog: Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)
• The Daily Triiibunal
• Noel Lynne Figart
• shinsato.com
• The Born Again Yesterday Page

I hope you enjoy some of these, and please share some of your favorite blogs or feeds with me too!

Being an entrepreneur is like being transgendered.

No, seriously. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about here. (:

First, you need to think really hard about what you want.

Becoming a new gender? Becoming a new business owner? First you’d better be sure that you’re following your heart. Search deep inside to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

Once you know what you want, you’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it.

There are lots of obstacles to both entrepreneurs and transgendered people, especially low-income transgendered people. But when you know what you want and are passionate about achieving it, you’ll do your best to overcome each and every one of those obstacles.

You’ll need to become good at learning new things.

Estradiol. Progesterone. How your body will change. The thrice-bedamned Harry Benjamin Standards of Care. How to find a good therapist. Surgery. How to come out to friends and family. How to come out at work. How to come out to someone you’re interested in dating (or are already dating). Clothes. Makeup. You can talk in the restroom now! Eye contact. Speech patterns. How to change your voice. How to change your body language. Sex. Orgasm. Social gender roles. How to be a lesbian. How to date women as a woman. How to be bisexual. How to date men as a woman.

Accounting. Distribution. Fulfillment. Marketing. Permission marketing. Tax law. How to incorporate. Social networking. Blogging. Podcasting. Vidcasting. Skype. Pricing. SEO. Web design. Wordpress plugins. Marketing copy. How to tell people about awesome stuff without being annoying. How to make friends with awesome people without being annoying. How to ask for help. Self-publishing. Business planning. E-commerce. Credit card machines. Referral/partner programs. How to find a good venue.

You will recreate yourself, and it will be painful.

When I transitioned from male to female, I created a new social persona for myself, one that better fit my internal self-concept. My friends and family had gotten used to interacting with Boy Pace for 20-odd years. When I became Girl Pace, I changed in many ways, although in many ways I stayed the same. Everyone’s social expectations were flummoxed because I no longer fit into the same social role. It was uncomfortable and awkward, both for me and for everyone else. I would sometimes spend less time with my friends who had a hard time adjusting, to avoid having my feelings hurt due to male pronouns, social awkwardness, and feeling misunderstood. This shift was difficult and painful. I spent more time with some of my new friends who hadn’t met me before I transitioned, because I didn’t have to deal with their old, stale expectations. Also I hung out with several other trans people because we were interested in talking about similar things.

Becoming an entrepreneur was surprisingly similar. I created a new social persona for myself, one that better fit my internal self-concept. In this case, my self-concept shifted from “a smart, creative computer geek” to “a passionate, effective lightworker who turns her dreams into reality.” My friends and business associates had gotten used to interacting with Geek Pace for almost 30 years. When I became Lightworker Pace, I changed in many ways, although in many ways I stayed the same. Everyone’s expectations were flummoxed because I no longer fit into the same role. It was uncomfortable and awkward. I would sometimes spend less time with my friends who had a hard time adjusting, to avoid becoming demotivated or depressed by negativity, because we shared fewer common interests, and because I felt misunderstood. This shift was difficult and painful. I spent more time with some of my new friends who hadn’t met me when I was Geek Pace, because I had more in common with them and we were interested in talking about similar things. More of my new friends were also entrepreneurs and lightworkers, whereas my old friends were living lives more like Geek Pace’s life that I had joyously left behind.

You will face your fears.

What if I turn out to be an ugly girl? What if my family disowns me? What if I don’t have what it takes to make this happen? What if I can’t do it because I don’t have enough money? What if I go broke? What if all my friends hate me? What if I lose my job? What if I lose the respect of my friends and peers? What if someone uses male pronouns for me in front of everyone? What if they laugh at me? What if I look ridiculous? What if they see through me and realize that I’m terrified? What if I lose my true self in a jumble of newly practiced body language and speech patterns? What if my voice is too deep? What if no one will want to date me? What if no one will accept me as I am? What if no one will love me?

What if no one wants to buy what we’re selling? What if no one finds our services valuable? What if no one cares? What if I don’t have what it takes to make this happen? What if I go broke? What if I get a lot of flak and negative comments? What if someone criticizes me in front of everyone? What if they laugh at me? What if they see through me and realize that I’m terrified? What if I lose my true self in a jumble of dollar signs and business plans? What if I lose my friends because I accidentally turn them into networking acquaintances? What if I burn out due to overwork? What if I fail because I don’t work hard enough? What if no one likes what I have to offer? What if no one likes me?

You will fail without self-knowledge and inner strength.

These fears will eat you alive if you let them. The only way to succeed is to truly know yourself — to grow into a person who is knowledgeable and self-confident enough to be able to handle those fears. Let your fears inform you, thank your fears for guiding you to a touchy spot, and then dig in. Figure out what the root cause of your fear is, and then use that as fertilizer for personal growth. Grow bigger than your fears. Embiggen and destuckify! (:

Entrepreneurship and gender transition are crash courses in fear-facing. Your issues will come up. Your landmines will be stepped on. Your triggers will be triggered. Each of these disasters is an opportunity for growth. (“Another fucking opportunity for growth”, as my friend Reesa says.) If you can maintain a positive attitude even through the toughest challenges, if each time you fall down you learn a little more about how to get back up, then your self-work will eventually manifest in outward success.

I wish you the best on your path of becoming.

The first night of our upcoming “Communication for the Holidays” course has been rescheduled to Thursday, November 6th.

We have learned a lot about releasing something. This lesson was, make sure your class doesn’t start on the most hotly anticipated night of the year. A good lesson, all told. We apologize for our mistake!

Anyway, please check it out, register, and join us; there are still plenty of spots available. It’s going to be awesome!

Our next course, Communication for the Holidays, will teach you how to get through the holiday season without fighting, screaming, stressing, or losing your mind while your house and your life are filled with people whom you would rather avoid like the plague.

This six-week course (seven, if you count the freebie) starts on November 6th (opening night moved due to the elections). We’re opening registration to our readers early: you can register here, starting today. All you need is an email address and a phone!

Regular price is $100/person for basic registration, and $250 for our VIP packages. However, for our loyal fans, we’re offering a 25% discount from now until Sunday night at 9pm CST!

That’s $75/person for basic or $187/person for VIP!

If you’ve been dreaming about getting in on the consulting call action, the VIP package is an amazing deal. You get the entire course plus two hours of consulting, for $187 (if you register before Sunday night). The regular cost of a single, one-hour consulting call is $150, so if you register and pay early, you basically get an additional hour of consulting and the entire 6-week course free. There are only eight VIP spots, so hurry or you’ll miss out! On Sunday at 9pm, we’ll open registration to everyone else and dismiss the discount.

If you can’t make every night, no problem – we’ll be recording every session, so you can call in as often or as rarely as you wish.

Details about the course are here, including what topics we’ll cover, how the Q&A works, and the actual dates and times of the calls.

Join us, and learn how to communicate with your annoying in-laws and all of the other people you see only during these chilly months without sacrificing any of your Yuletide cheer.

Seth Godin recently wrote a book called Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. He’s using the word “tribe” in the general sense to mean any community with a shared bond. (Kyeli’s face is on the inside front cover of Seth’s book! It’s so cool!) As soon as the book was pre-released, Seth also launched an invite-only social networking site called Triiibes, open only to readers of his blog who pre-ordered the book.

Triiibes turned out to be a friendly, fun group of people with an amazing talent for getting shit done. And here, my friends, is an example of that. We co-authored an e-book on the concept of tribes, which Seth released today as a counterpart to his book. Each of the co-authors wrote a case study on a particular tribe or a particular aspect of the nature of tribes.

You can download the e-book in PDF format here, or by clicking on the burning building. Feel free to share it, but don’t change it or sell it.

• My case study, Bi Poly Kinky Pagan Gamer Geeks, is on page 139.
• Megan’s, On Diversity, is on page 77.
• My friend Joe Noonan wrote one called A Pitcher of Heroes on page 143.
• Anne McCrossan, Galaxy Zoo – The Tribe That Looks Out For Us, page 34.
• Lori Hoeck, The Tribe That Deals With Life, Death, and Chaos, page 213.
• Becky Blanton, The Butterfly Effect, page 140. She’ll be making a guest post here soon!
• Trish Lambert, Bluewater Cruising, page 168.
• Ed Welch, KOTOR – When Star Wars Tribes and Gaming Tribes Overlap, page 12.
• CoCreatr Bernd Nurnberger, The Ride of Silence, page 25.

There are over 100 case studies in the e-book; those are just the ones written by my friends. I plan on reading a couple each time my feed reader runs out of the internet, until I make it all the way through. (:

Charlie at Productive Flourishing wrote:

Are you increasing signal or adding noise in your communication with other people?

…a good way to assess the information that we’re thinking about spreading is The Triple Filters Test. The test asks whether the information you’re spreading is true, good, and useful, and if it’s not, it’s not worth the time. That same test applies to the conversations and messages we send to people, as well.

…I became very judicious about what information I’d send her. The question I asked each time was “Is this worth my time to write and/or her time to read?” You’d really be surprised by how much of your email time can be cut down if you treat your friends’ time the same way you want your time to be treated.

Charlie makes a good point, and I want to follow up on his comment, “Is this worth my time to write and/or her time to read?” Reading and writing are very different activities, both in how much time they take and in how many good things and bad things they bring to you.

Reading an email is usually a very small time investment. Most people read at a speed of 200-250 words per minute, and most emails are short. Even if your email is noise rather than signal, you probably haven’t negatively influenced the recipient’s life in any way other than perhaps wasting 30 seconds of their time. In fact, you may have brightened their day with your idle chatter, helping create or strengthen a connection. There are three ways this could go wrong.

1. If your email is very long, you’re taking up more of the recipient’s time. If you’re writing a long email, it had better be all signal and no noise.

2. If your email is likely to upset the recipient, think about whether sending it will achieve anything useful. If you think they’re likely to react defensively and not really listen to what you’re writing, then you might as well hold back from sending it. Also think about whether email is the best medium to convey what you want to say. Touchy subjects are best handled in person, and phone is often better than email.

3. If the recipient feels obligated to reply to your email, you may have introduced additional stress into their life. If the goodness they get from reading the email is outweighed by the obligation and time of writing a reply, receiving the email has on the whole brought them more badness than goodness.

This is of course a matter of boundaries — you’re not necessarily responsible for others’ reactions to your email, or for their obligation issues that you may trigger. However, if you’re sending an email to someone you like, you probably want them to be happy to receive it. If they’re initially happy, but then your email sits in their inbox for days or weeks, stressing them out because they feel obligation to reply but don’t know what to say or don’t have the time, then you haven’t achieved your goal of having them be happy to receive it. Replying to an email takes 5 times longer than reading it, and that number can go up to 50 if you include thinking of what you say. I know a lot of people who stress about their overfull inboxes, so I’d imagine that this situation comes up a lot.

Some busy folks address this problem by email templates. They write out a few common replies, e.g.

Hi,

Thanks for writing, but unfortunately I must decline your offer.  My
full schedule simply doesn't permit me to do all the things I would
otherwise like to do.  Hope you understand.

Thanks,
Jebediah Bloafrahaha of the Jebediah Bloafrahaha Billiard Balls

Even if you personalize each reply, working from a template can help you avoid that feeling of staring at a blank screen and not knowing where to start. Personalizing a template often takes much less time than writing a reply from scratch.

Most of us don’t feel busy or overwhelmed enough to warrant email templates, but take a look at your inbox. Do the facts square with your feeling? Do you think your friends would appreciate a reply, even if it were a personalized template? More importantly, do you think your friends would want you to stress out about having not replied to them yet? Especially the random chatty emails, not the “Hey, how about that money you owe me” emails.

SPOILER: Pace is going to advocate communication.

What if we made our expectations explicit? What if, the next time we wrote a friendly, shoot-the-breeze email to a friend, we tacked on:

No need to reply, just wanted to say hi.

If your friend is a little neurotic about email like many of us are, that little sentence might make the difference between whether your email ends up being a happy-making thing or a stress-making thing for them.

On the other hand, if we do need a reply, let’s make that explicit as well.

I need to know this by the end of the week, okay?  Thanks.

In real life, if you walk up to someone, ask them a question, and they just stand there and stare at you, you’ll think they’re either incredibly rude or that there’s something wrong with them. The same goes for a phone conversation. But with email, the social conventions aren’t as well established; people disagree on the etiquette of which emails to reply to.

So let’s talk about it.

Let’s tell our friends about our little neuroses. It’s not your friends’ responsibility to compensate for your issues, but they’ll probably appreciate having more information about you. Let’s tell our friends about our expectations, too. If we’re feeling obligated to reply to a bunch of emails that our friends never expected us to reply to, then we’re putting a completely unnecessary burden on ourselves.

All it takes to relieve that burden is a little communication.