It is week two on most fall calendars, which means add and drop, which means your inbox stopped being under control somewhere around Friday.

Today's session names something I do not think we have ever named properly.

Writing the reply is not the expensive part. You know your own policy. You know the date. Once you understand what a student is asking, most replies take under two minutes.

The expensive part is the reading. Once through and you get nothing. Again, more slowly. Sometimes you open the assignment to work out which one they mean. Only on the second or third pass do you start writing.

That is the reread tax. It lands on nearly every unclear message and it appears on no workload document in higher education.

The whole method is three moves. Name the shape of the email. Write in one line what it is really asking, in your own words. Answer that, plus the thing they were going to ask next.

The free working session takes the ten oldest messages in your inbox and runs all three on them. About twenty five minutes, nothing saved, nothing signed up for.

https://www.harvestkernel.com/the-reread-tax-audit/

One question, and one line is a complete answer.

What shape does your inbox actually take this week? Permission asks, status checks, deadline negotiations, lost students, or logistics?