Here’s a reasonable assumption to make: your boss or client is always overwhelmed with emails and incoming communication. That makes sense, that’s why he hired you, after all.
Here’s a second assumption: you’re going to follow the over communication & constant-context recommendations I’m making here. This means that, in addition to all the other incoming messages from everyone else, he’s going to have a lot coming from you as well.
These two, alone but magnified taken together, lead to the conclusion: he’s likely to not read too many of your messages. Or put them into a box to review once every few days. That’s what I would do. In fact, that’s what I often do.
How to combat this? Easy: if someone is urgent, note it in the email subject line. I usually do that by prefacing the email subject line with the all-capitals: “TIME-SENSITIVE” and you may want to experiment with doing the same.
What I like about the phrase “time-sensitive” in this regard is that it says clearly “urgent” but without the word “urgent.” If your boss or client gets the word “urgent,” his heart may drop, thinking that he needs to drop everything and solve a major fire burning down the company now. When really, our request really isn’t about stopping the company from burning down (hopefully there is no fire.)
But “time-sensitive,” on the other hand, does convey that he needs to read it and respond to it fairly quickly, so it’s not a burning priority but it does need to be a high priority.
Sometimes, I go a step further. Sometimes I preface all non-urgent communication as “Low Priority” or “Moderate Priority” in situations of lots of emails, these clarifications make prioritizing much easier for the other side.
You may want to experiment with doing the same for non-email communication as well. Take meeting requests, for example. “Hey, do you have 5 minutes for a call? It’s not urgent.” Adding “it’s not urgent” or similar wording helps the other side organize and prioritize, as well as sets expectations. All key factors contributing to the easy flow they will feel of working with you.
