Don't Be Lazy

This is something I’ve been meaning to write for a while and is inspired by Sol Orwell’s post of the same name. I know that anyone actually reading this isn’t likely to be someone that needs to, but I’m writing it anyway for the catharsis.

“Being slightly lazy and causing more work for someone else is a recipe for frustration.” - Sol

I love it when I’m able to help people, especially beginner potters, as I learnt almost everything I know about ceramics from the potters who came before me and were willing to share. When you know very little about something it can be tough to know what terms to search to find out more, and a nudge in the right direction can save hours of frustration.

I’m also a bit of a completionist. I have no unread emails or DMs, and it bothers me a little when I do.

I try to pre-empt questions and make the answers as easy to find as possible, by including the information in the description of an Instagram post or by having a dedicated page/link on my website. This means the majority of people have a good starting point for reading more, and come back with great follow up questions that I’m genuinely happy to answer. I really enjoy discussing all aspects of the things I talk about (whether related to ceramics or not) and the conversations are hugely beneficial to me too.

However…

There are some questions that put absolutely no effort in. Often they’re things that could be solved by putting the same question into Google, or they’re the question I knew was coming and answered ahead of time:

A little while ago I was feeling overwhelmed by the number of comments/messages/emails I was getting and made a new rule - I would do my best to make the information as easy to find as I could ahead of time and ignore any question that demonstrated a total lack of effort. I think the first part reduced the number of responses needed by at least half and the second meant I would ignore a decent chunk of the remainder.

This means I get to spend more time answering the questions where I can add more information than a simple Google would give you, and better help the people who put a little effort in.

My Instagram profile clicks through to the Links page, to make it as easy as possible to avoid having to ask questions like this.

Since doing this, I’ve heard other people (like Florian Gadsby, who has significantly more followers than me) talk about the same rule. Even a quick response to each one can add up to a significant amount of time when you consider how many you get in a week/month/year.

It’s a death of a thousand cuts. No one message is overly problematic, on their own they’re trivial and would be easy to just respond to, but the cumulative effect will lead to frustration and resentment.

As a busy person, why should I even bother with someone who is too lazy to perform a simple five second Google search?

It’s the same thing if someone says “xxxx” and you don’t know what XXXX is. Don’t ask – Google it and figure it out yourself!

- Sol

I know the questions are coming from a good place, people want an answer to a question and ask someone who they trust and see as a valuable resource, but there is a lack of respect for their time if you haven’t put a little effort into answering it yourself first. If you have tried to answer it and come up blank, put a brief description of what you tried in the message and you’ll likely get a much better response.

They’re coming from a slightly different place given the nature of the account, but these are a good (and brief) read - DM Etiquette Part 1, Part 2