43 Folders is a blog about "personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life better." The following excerpt, called "more good ideas," is part of a larger entry on emailing that should be required reading for anyone with an index finger and a "send" button. (Read the full entry here) This post appeared 9-19-05.
More good ideas
- Make it easy to quote -- Power email users will quote and respond to specific sections or sentences of your message. You can facilitate this by keeping your paragraphs short, making them easy to slice and dice.
- Don't chuck the ball -- Emails to a thread are like comments at a meeting; think of both like your time possessing the basketball. Don't just chuck at the net every chance you get. Hang back and watch for how you can be most useful. Minimize noise.
- A reminder never hurts -- If you're following-up or responding to an email that's more than a few days old, provide context right at the opening. For example, "You wrote in February asking to be notified when the new asthma inhalers are in stock; here's a link to the items we've now made available on our site?."
- Never mix, never worry -- Unless your team really prefers to work that way, do not mix topics, projects, or domains of life in a given email. Inform everyone of Baby Tyler's adorable antics in a different message than the one with the downsizing rumors and budget warnings.
- No thanks -- I'm not married to this one, but I know a lot of people who swear by it. In more informal settings and in high-volume mail environments, it's not necessary to respond with a "Thanks" email whenever someone does what you asked. Save your gratitude for the next time you pass in the hall; a one-word "Thanks" email can be crufty and unnecessary. On the other hand, don't hesitate to thank someone for their time if they've truly done you a proper.
- RTFM -- If you're asking for help, make sure you've exhausted all the documentation and non-human resources you have at your disposal. When you do ask for help, be sure to quickly cover the solutions you've already tried and what the results were.
- Skip the overture -- If you're writing to a busy person with an actual question or request, resist the desire to swoon for 2,000 characters. Either write a fan letter or a useful email, but mixing them can seem tacky and disingenuous. Just go ahead and ask Gary Gygax for his autograph already.
