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Comment by grammarxcore | Hacker News Reader

I refuse to believe that not answering every single email within an hour is a good predictor of anything other than being glued to your phone. I think extending it to a reasonable amount of time, maybe a business day max, works out pretty well. Sometimes people respond really fast because they’re taking regular breaks and other times they don’t respond all evening because they’re putting on their kid’s birthday party. Even at work, sometimes very good colleagues are doing things back-to-back for hours and using short windows to do things like go to the bathroom.

On the other hand maybe this is some art thing I’m too far away from to understand? Maybe really good artists to work with never need more than twenty minutes of deep focus at a time for anything?

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I read this as "answer within the hour when preparing an exhibition". If you are in full swing to get an exhibition up and running and this is the time you decide to throw yourself into deep focus work, you are probably hard to work with. I would also assume if some artist told the author "look I know we open on Tuesday, but this Friday we have my kid's birthday so from 4 to 8 I won't be easy to reach", this would probably just be silently dropped from the cou ting of how fast they respond.

On the other hand, without warning going dark for 4 work day hours a few days before exhibition would look terrible if any serious question came up.

So I don't think it's literally responding within the hour, but it comes pretty dang close. You have to keep in mind that being an artist creating art and being an artist setting up an exhibition are basically two different jobs and if you end up doing them in parallel at the same time, that's your problem right there.

How long does setting up an exhibition take, and what kind of hours are you expecting? 4-8 are workday hours?

And what kind of question needs to be answered that fast, but wasn't important enough to be asked several days earlier? My feeling is that there should be very few such questions, few enough that each artist can safely take half a day if they get one.

A day and a half is slow even in software, and software doesn't have things like the example given of wanting a wall put up then asking for it to be taken down again.

Sure, software does have bad communicators who change their minds, but revert is relatively easy.

> A day and a half is slow even in software,

We're talking about half a day, not a day and a half. Or really, less than half a day.

> and software doesn't have things like the example given of wanting a wall put up then asking for it to be taken down again.

The wall example was taking place over "weeks". If there is still an urgent question about wall-building a few days out then it sounds like someone waited much too long and that's the real problem, not the extra four hours.

If everyone is there to set up your exhibition at a certain agreed upon time, then you should be engaged and answering any questions immediately if not sooner, regardless of how long it takes to set up the exhibition.

Certain agreed upon time? Yes, of course. You should probably be there for most of it too.

But once you're covering multiple days, no, a single person should not be expected to respond lightning fast the entire time. And the several day scenario is what the comment I replied to talked about.

Setting up an exhibition can take many days, and the hours can be extreme. There is limited time between when the previous show goes down, and when the next show goes up.

It's crunch time for the artist, and what exactly is involved will depend upon the show. This is the time when the artist's concept for the show meets physical reality, and since things involve the physical world, there are all sorts of things that can go wrong.

At this point the artist is essentially a project manager. They are coordinating with other people to fulfill their own vision. If those other people need a question answered before they can proceed, then those people are going to be blocked until the responds.

It's simply not polite to let people sit on their asses for a half day waiting for a response.

> If those other people need a question answered before they can proceed, then those people are going to be blocked until the responds.

This is where I'm not seeing it. It sounds like the gallery employee we're talking about is working with several artists at once. Which gives them plenty of things to do.

And if the hours are long, then 4 of them are significantly less than half a day.

I read it like so too. I don’t typically respond to emails immediately unless I have my email application open (which I rarely do as I do enjoy time to do deep work). But in the lead up to a big event there is no way I would go radio silent, unless I’m unconscious in the hospital.

Since when is email expected to be answered immediately??? Anything urgent means a phone call, or a text message. Emails are either for cya reasons (but then my urgency is not necessarily your urgency) or just big stuff needing time - to write, to compose, to think, to analyse. So email answering time is a wrong metric by definition.

Unfortunately it's one of those hacks that makes your look like a superhuman. I hate it but obsessively answering emails and messages as soon as possible has given me so many opportunities that it feels like a cheat code. It's nothing reasonable about it but it's just the way things are.

When people complain about this they aren't thinking about how much they love people not answering them. Obviously not everything needs to be answered quickly all the time but the world is full of delays and waiting. Any relief is welcome.

So how does that work, can you elaborate?

What is the difference if you answer in 10 minutes, 6 hours or 24 hours? Are you competing on time of response so if you're fast you're getting the deal?

I can only speak for myself - I produce exec/board materials. Often a request will go out to several people and I can get ahead by responding first. Sometimes someone will reply to me quickly and the edge I bring is properly digesting their response and then going back quickly to them with questions. Others might accept they have a reply and then wait until they are pulling the paper together to realise they are missing key data.

I don’t read or action all emails instantly, but I am very aware of the ones I need to, or when I am in a period of high focus that needs information fast.

In an ideal world I’d be in an office with all the people I needed around me, all with the same focus and priorities, but that is rarely the case. So to excel at my job I need to make connections fast and respond fast. (Note this isn’t just email, this is just for my communications in general.)

I remember one event vividly.

Exec asked for some business information information while traveling.

I replied promptly, sending a link to a webpage, within the proper process for secure data sharing according to company policy. This required exec to visit our internal website to view the information.

A teammate emailed the information directly, violating policy and good data stewardship.

CEO replied to teammate's email with a big group thank you for "emailing the information quickly".

That is classic, but you knew it would go like that when you sent the link, didn't you? :)

Replying quickly looks like you care and you already know what's going on. It also suggests that you'd be willing to have even more synchronous conversations (phone calls, trips together, etc.)

Doing it during business hours matters more than off hours outside of major deadlines or event prep.

With many organizations, if you want to give this impression and also shut down communications to focus, you need blocks of time outside of business hours where you focus. For example, I know a responsive executive who cannot be reached from 6am-9am every weekday, when most people aren't trying to get hold of him. This is when he writes and reads. Even then, his assistant fields communications so he doesn't seem to have disappeared.

Not saying you should do this or that it's for everybody.

Very interesting. How do you square this with the times you need to concentrate?

My experience is the complete opposite. It’s a weak point like a supermarket that is still open at 11 pm. Do I need it? No, but I’ll take the service anyway since it’s free.

How is it a weak point for a supermarket to be open at 11? 24 hour supermarkets are fantastic and have saved my bottom many a time.

Do I _need_ it? No, I don't _need_ much of anything other than air to breathe and a bit of food in my belly. Most people don't just settle for that though.

Obligatory song to the last part of your message: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm8oxC24QZc (Eddie Vedder - Society)

It has always resonated with me.

This is an uncharitable take. Who said anything about an interruption every 20 minutes? We're talking about an artist doing an exhibition at a gallery, by any measure, this is a pretty significant collaboration that is in the artist's best interest and not something their getting spammed with dozens of a times a day.

If you read and digest the article, the point is not to create a litmus test based on time-to-response, it's to recognize there are a lot of people to talk a big game but are unserious about achieving shared goals.

If an artist is not responsive because they are so serious about their creative process that they don't have time to respond to a gallery doing an exhibition than maybe that's the right thing for what they are serious about, but it does jack shit for the gallery staffer who is serious about creating an exhibition.

Artists tend to be in art production mode or sales mode. When in sales mode and doing exhibitions, etc., good ones are very responsive.

They work for a a year, or maybe several, then there are sales to be had over the corse of a month or so. The work they are selling is finished.

Would you work on something for years, and then when the time comes to maybe sell it — not answer the phone?

People that work at art galleries are not artists.

The bit in the article about email responsiveness concerned artists

depends on the gallery, some make you work a shift if you want to sell your art there

Not professional artists (in the UK)? Curation is a separate skill, and you're paying through the nose for the gallery's services, usually.

it depends, but i tried to sell my paintings at local galleries and some wanted me to do things like that

Are you a professional [earning most of your money through your art]? Which country do you live in please?

I've only seen the self-curation from community groups. I'm all for collectives but I'm pretty sure the professional artists I know would say it gives off budget/desperate vibes and so it's something you can't afford to do if you aspire to 'make it [big]'.

{I express myself through overuse of parentheses and through runon sentences...}

Though they do play a crucial role in selling and promoting the art

i did take some issue with the way that point was phrased as well.

but, i took it a little more broadly than it was actually specified: people who are not great about communicating or make it hard for you to work with them at the outset will probably continue to be like that throughout the entirety of your working relationship.

i watch some videos on the Tested youtube channel, where the host is Adam Savage, who was one of the hosts/creators of the MythBusters tv show, and he often talks about this point, and how he learned it working with Jamie Hyneman early on in his career where they would take clients, and Jamie explained this principal.

You’re trying to systematise something that is more like basic human nature. It’s like trying to explain why people like attractive people from a utilitarian perspective.

In the real world I just prefer to interact with people who prioritise me over other things and most people are the same.

Yet some artists do believe that it's morally wrong that producing whatever they deem as good art isn't guaranteed to be self-supporting. They shouldn't ultimately have to answer to anyone else's opinion to earn a living. Which is highly entitled, and non-evolutionary.

Anyone who thinks that the Universe owes them is sorely mistaken.

He didn't mention a timescale. Maybe it's a difference between 4 hours and 1 day? I would agree that if someone takes longer than a day to respond, then it's going to be hard to work with this person. 4 hours is fine.

Becoming recognized as a good artist depends a great deal on being an effective communicator about one's work. It's sort of self-selecting but it is part of the job.

I interpreted it as "artists who are reasonable people produce better art."

IE, focus more on qualities like: Asking to move a wall at the last minute, needing a life counselor...

Yep, this wouldn’t necessarily apply to everyone — especially those who balance multiple roles

All people are not alike. Thankfully. Refer Law of Requisite Variety. Some people live to please.

Once you understand people are very different, the whole story turns into setting teams up such that the right people are in the right role. Ofcourse this is hard to pull off, so there is always drama in any group.

I have found that folks like Jensen, Elon, Jobs, etc answer their emails in 5-10 min. You be the judge.

They have EA’s that can go through their inboxes for them and highlight what actually needs a response. Hell they probably draft responses for them too

And that is so because they made it a priority for it to be so.

you are wrong. you probably think someone tweets for elon as well lol.

This is not just some art thing. People note it in every field. It's not the only predictor; the author of Chrome reportedly did most of it offline IIRC. But it's a real phenomenon that is robust in the face of the concerns you're raising. There is a wide range of email responsiveness -- even among people who are going to the bathroom and putting on birthday parties and doing focus work -- and it is a helpful predictor.

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