7 Habits for Effective Emailing
1) Let your first draft marinade a bit. Your first draft of anything is just what it sounds like . . .the first . . .and a draft. Don’t rush to send it. Give yourself time to find those couple of dropped words or remember that forgotten point of information (or tricksy attachment).
2) Review your emails from the recipient’s vantage point. Have you assumed they know things they don’t? Is there any additional context needed? How’s your tone? A carefully planned message can save everyone’s inbox five exasperating follow-ups.
3) Get straight to the point. Place your main point, question, or need in the first line or two. If you have multiple points to communicate, number and prioritize them.
4) Avoid burying your key points in big, blocky chunks of text. One day scientists will discover the gene or synaptic pattern that makes us skim over walls of text. Until then, just trust that your readers will skim and miss key information.
5) Don’t send emails when you are annoyed or upset. And certainly, don’t send them when you are boiling mad. Anger has a fascinating way of slipping into our tone, punctuation choices, and message structure. Once done, the damage is hard to undo.
6) Analyze the messages you receive for writing lessons. How do some messages land with you and other colleagues? How are serious and supervisory topics handled? How is bad news delivered? The world doesn’t give us a handbook on how to handle every potential email situation. Instead, the examples and lessons arrive in our inboxes daily.
7) Ask for input before sending out important messages. Have a colleague or supervisor review them for clarity and substantive content. There’s nothing wrong with asking for a second set of eyes. However, please don’t send something for review that you haven’t already reviewed yourself (review tip #1). You should find the obvious errors yourself (and with the help of tools like spelling and grammar checkers). Reserve the second set of eyes for the not-so-obvious finds.