Michael Hyatt, among many other things, is a tremendously insightful blogger. He is one a a handful of bloggers that I read regularly. You can read his blog here.

Sometime ago he posted some thoughts on “responsiveness” that have not only stuck with me, they are changing me. Hyatt has written about this subject multiple times and you can read all of them here.

I’ve not always been the most responsive person. Sure I have reasons… but most of them look more like excuses when viewed closely! So I’m thinking about why I’m not responsive. Here are a few reasons:

• I don’t have a good plan in place to deal with things like e-mail, voice messages, etc.
• Sometimes I’m too tired to give a thoughtful response… so I don’t respond.
• Sometimes I don’t care enough to respond (that’s just rude…)
• Sometimes I create too many “input streams” which overloads me with voices to which I must respond. For instance I have 2 Twitter accounts, 2 Facebook pages, three e-mails, and a blog. That’s in addition to voicemail on cell phone, home phone, and church phone. Which is in addition to notes people pass me, crisis’ which require my attention, parenting responsibilities, etc. Maybe it’s time to unload.

A couple of things I’m doing to up the responsiveness quotient in my life:

• Keep the inbox empty… or close to it!
• Keep the voice-mail empty… or close to it!
• I’m finding that the sooner I respond the easier it is (usually). And the opposite is true too… the longer it takes to respond, the more difficult it becomes (usually).
• Lastly, I’m keeping in mind what Jesus said, “Do to others as you want them to do to you” (Luke 6:31). And guess what?! I like people to respond to me!

Anyhow I think you’d really like and benefit from Michael Hyatt’s thoughts on responsiveness so go here to check them out!