In the days of yore, people communicated by writing using a portable highly compact printer known as a pen (or sometimes a pencil). The products of these instruments were known as “letters.” Sometimes, whole novels were written as if they were collections of these letters. This was when people would wait days or weeks to receive news from loved ones. Even news of the birth of a grandchild might take days–unlike today’s birthing room cam broadcast on the Internet for instant world-wide viewing.
In the days of yore, people communicated by writing using a portable highly compact printer known as a pen (or sometimes a pencil). The products of these instruments were known as “letters.” Sometimes, whole novels were written as if they were collections of these letters. This was when people would wait days or weeks to receive news from loved ones. Even news of the birth of a grandchild might take days–unlike today’s birthing room cam broadcast on the Internet for instant world-wide viewing.
When people wrote letters and waited days to receive them, they wanted something substantial. If you wrote a novella detailing your latest adventures in the suburban jungle and asked your recipient “How’re you doing?”, you’d be miffed if the response was merely “Fine.” These days, with the near instantaneousness of e-mails and the frequent deluge of them in your inbox, the long-winded e-mail can be aggravating.
To the point: E-mails should be short, pithy, and necessary. In my day job, I do work for many people in my company. They send me e-mails telling me to do such and such. Many people abuse their e-mail priviledges. E-mailing for work is not a social activity. I have come to the point where I need to set some ground rules–but my position in the company doesn’t really make this appropriate. So, I’ll do it here.
Rules for Business E-mail
1) Make the e-mail necessary: Is this information I need to do my job? Too many people CC me on developments. In my position, I only need to be told WHAT to do, not WHY, and not HOW the decision was made. I don’t care about the back-and-forth of the debate. Is it red, is it blue, is it now green? When you decide, tell me, otherwise don’t clutter my inbox.
2) Make it short. I know who I am, so I don’t need “To Jeff” or even “Jeff.” I know who you are (if I don’t, you probably can’t be telling me to do something), so I don’t need your signature. God help you if you have one of those obnoxious signatures with every means on the planet to contact you or, worse, with some idiotic character picture. Say: “Do x by y date.” My reply will be “Done.” If you send me a “Thanks,” you’re violating rule 1.
3) Not everyone uses Outlook, so if you must send one of those Outlook meeting announcements, please include some human readable text. For example: “Meeting: 1:30 to 2:30. Topic: How much should we raise your salaries. Place: Room 121.” (I’ll get into this more in another article, but this meeting should satisfy the first two rules here, too.)
4) Give me a meaningful subject. Ideally, the subject line could tell me everything I need to know. For example, the meeting notice human text in rule 3 could be the subject line. I have my hands in many projects, so it would be great if the project name could be part of the e-mail. That would make categorizing it a snap. (It would also help me trash e-mails without reading them.)
5) Don’t e-mail me about work that needs to be done in minutes or even a few hours. I usually only check my e-mail in the morning, maybe in the afternoon. If the work is urgent, there’s a device known as a phone. Simply call me; say “I’ve sent an urgent e-mail. Please read it for the details.” I know I could use an application like Outlook or Thunderbird that would notify me when new e-mails arrive, but this rule is intended to instill discipline in others. I don’t want them e-mailing me at the last minute with urgent work. Tell me as early as possible.
Leave comments for Jeff about this article: