How not to do it.

Efficient task management is an important. And I have an example of how not to do it.

So about a week ago I've sent out an email. The email had a form attached. The form had a mistake in it, so when I've realised that the next morning, I've sent another email, pointing out the mistake and enclosing another, this time correct, form. Having not received a reply, this morning I've sent another email, enclosing the form again. Just in case.

And this afternoon I received a reply. In fact, I received three replies.

So the first email said was in reply to my first email and the reply went along the lines that I've sent out a corrected form, so they will reply to the second email with the correct form, because there's no point in replying to this one.

The second email was to the point and dealt with my problem as explained in email one, but taking the corrected form from email two. It was quite a relief, but finally it looked that the issue can gain some momentum and be resolved.

And just as I thought this is all done and I'm all sorted, the the third email came just after the second one, saying that they have a backlog of about a week in emails, and this is why I had to wait for the reply in the previous email for a week.

So this was very efficient of them, given their backlog in emails, to reply to all my three emails within one afternoon using three separate emails. Someone seriously needs to reconsider the way work is organised in this office. I'm not at all surprised that they have a backlog of a week if they send multiple, absolutely useless replies to every single email their receive. Did you ever hear of prioritisation? It's an important skill. Better learn it.