Are you drowning in emails? Is Inbox Zero an impossibility right now?
In previous posts we asked you to tell us your Email Pet Peeves, looked at improving your email use by introducing better subject lines, and smarter use of TO, CC and BCC.
In this post we look at how to keep your emails short and sweet.
The challenge here is to keep as many of your emails as possible shorter than 5 sentences. The theory is that the shorter the emails you send out, the shorter the ones you get back. Plus think of all the time you’ll save writing and reading long messages!
Step 1
Decide to do it. Set yourself a challenge – spend 1 day writing 5 sentence emails. See how it feels!
Step 2
Tell your colleagues and encourage them to do the same
Step 3
Add a signature to your emails, informing external contacts. Find one at Five Sentences – and more information!
Step 4
Just do it! Yes, there are obviously exceptions to every rule, but the ‘five sentences rule’ is a great benchmark that will add discipline to not just your own emails, but the emails that you receive back in return.
If you do have a lot to say, that you simply cannot fit into an email, try a link to a Word document report or a phonecall instead – remember, email is just another medium and its not always the most effective one!
Like this? Try these
Sign up for one of our Email Etiquette workshops
Improve your use of Email Subject Line
Be smarter with TO, CC and BCC
