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Many of us spend huge chunks of our days writing email. If this is one of your jobs, here’s how to write better email….
Did you know that more than half of people who receive email cite it as a source of workplace complexity, confusion and resentment? Those are not good odds — we’re talking worse than a coin flip here.
But as a writer and communicator, you can help turn the tide by making your own emails a model of clarity and efficiency — and save some of your own time to boot. Here are 13 tips for how to write better email:
1-Don’t send emails reflexively. I know I’m sometimes guilty of sending too many emails. Before we even let the thought of emailing cross our minds, we should consider whether it’s the ideal form of communication for our purpose or if we could handle the issue better with a phone call (remember those?) or personal conversation. Here are six times when it makes way more sense to speak with someone rather than email them:
- When you want to apologize
- When you expect lots of questions
- When you have to explain something complicated
- When you’ve taken too long to respond
- When you want to discuss something personal
- When the issue you want to discuss is especially urgent
2-Be short and succinct. Emails seem fast to you, the sender, but remember the challenges your recipients face. Recall your own inbox with 353 unread emails (I see you, fellow procrastinators)…. Don’t ramble on and on. Instead, get to your point quickly. If your email is super short, the odds are higher you’ll get a faster response. Plus, your reader will surely appreciate your superior communication.
3-Have a specific subject line. I receive way too many generic subject lines (looking at you, “Quick question” senders). When the subject line is highly specific — for example: “Tornado may affect delivery of your purchase” — I find it much more motivating to read. (Also, the email is easier to find later.) Do your readers a favour by giving them subject lines that present a summary of the information in the message. And here’s a trick I learned from a really smart executive assistant: If there’s a deadline involved, put it in the subject line, e.g., DEADLINE, Friday, Sept. 5.
4-Be clear about what you want people to do. Put your request or “ask” right at the top of the email. Don’t bury it in the middle or towards the end. If you want the person to write a report or attend a meeting, tell them that right away. Your clarity will improve their response rate (and reduce the chances of getting a confused “What exactly do you want from me?” reply).
5-Discuss only one idea per email. Don’t jam 10 different messages into one poor email. In fact, don’t even jam two. Just as “one person; one vote” should be a respected principle in politics, the concept of “one email; one idea” should govern your email behaviour. I received five emails from my webmaster this morning. Did I blame him for cluttering up my inbox? No! I practically wanted to send him a thank-you card! Each email addressed a single idea (and the subject line matched). I love getting email this way. It allows me to stay organized and to find important information more easily later.
6-When trying to set up meetings, be sure to list your availability in the first email. There’s nothing worse than email ping-pong that goes back-and-forth 15 times between multiple people. If you need to set up a meeting between two people, be sure to begin your email by listing your own availability. (For example: I could meet on Monday between 2 and 3 pm; on Tuesday after 11 am; and on Wednesday between 9 and 10 am.) If you need to set up a meeting between multiple people, don’t do it with email. Use an app like Doodle.
7-Check your tone. Email appears to be an inherently relaxed style of communication, but there are many traps within. First, if you’re writing a business email, it’s essential to keep your tone professional. No smiley faces or too-casual language. Also, whatever the style of email, be aware that humour — irony in particular — is especially hard to convey because so much depends on the tone of voice. Even with friends, you’d be wise to avoid humour in email and save your best jokes for your phone or in-person meetings.
8-Make your email scannable. Use super brief paragraphs, employ bullets or numbers and consider subheads (for long emails). And, just as important, pick a legible font at a reasonable size, and don’t overuse boldface or italics. (Boldface and italics work best for a few words at a time. If you use them for entire sentences, you’re killing their effectiveness.)
9-Always CC the minimum number of people. I become genuinely annoyed when I get messages that my eyes really don’t need to see. (The waste of time clicking on the email, reading it and then having to throw it in the trash always gets under my skin.) And this irritation becomes absolutely volcanic when the email contains a single sentence saying something like “Thank you,” or “I agree,” copied to a dozen people. I have one particular client who does this sort of emailing all the time. Argh!
10-On the other hand, if your email offers a compliment (as from time to time it should!) be sure to CC the person’s boss. Everyone appreciates a compliment, but they’ll get even more value out of it if their boss learns of it, too. It’s like giving someone a compliment with a megaphone, in the best possible way.
11-Don’t assume privacy. Send nothing by email that you wouldn’t want posted — with your name attached — in the staff room (or on the office bulletin board, or tattooed on your forehead). Email is not secure. I learned this memorably 30 years ago when the IT person at my job shared with me several nasty emails that the Big Boss had sent about other people. The IT guy was trying to help me with some ugly office politics — and he did — but his action underlined the essential insecurity of email.
12-Be sure to proofread. Have you ever looked like an idiot because of spelling or grammar mistakes in your emails? Never send emails right away. Instead, develop the habit of saving them as drafts and editing them an hour later before sending. I know this strategy will seem like a hassle, but you’ll save yourself a lot of embarrassment if you approach email in this fashion. Even better, it will prevent you from sending “angry” emails without thinking twice about it.
13-Don’t reply to emails too quickly. Dampen your enthusiasm for the speed of email. If you’re dealing with an issue where speed is essential, pick up the phone. Otherwise, process your email only several times a day. If you’re the type of person who always responds to email in less than five minutes, you’re training your colleagues to expect that rate of response from you. Instead, train them to expect the reverse. My own copy editor never replies to emails on the same day. As a result, I know that if I want an immediate response, I need to call her. (She’s basically trained me like a Pavlovian dog, and I respect her for it.)
Email has made our lives easier and more efficient. But it’s also created a host of additional problems. Don’t become famous as a bad communicator simply because you haven’t developed a thoughtful process for how to write better email.
If you liked this post, you’ll also like 7 ways to manage your email overload.
An earlier version of this post first appeared on my blog on July 12/19.
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Need some help developing a better, more sustainable writing or editing routine? Learn about my three-month accountability program called Get It Done. There is turn-over each month, and priority will go to those who have applied first. You can go directly to the application form, and you’ll hear back from me within 24 hours.
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My video podcast last week addressed how to write when you haven’t been given a word count. You can watch the video or read the transcript, and you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel.
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How do you write better emails? We can all learn from each other, so please, share your thoughts with my readers and me in the comments section, below. And congratulations to Mel Williams, the winner of this month’s book prize for a comment on my Aug. 26/25 blog about digital apps for writers. (Please send me your email address, Mel.) If you comment on today’s post (or any others) by Sept. 30/25, I’ll put you in a draw for a digital copy of my first book, 8 1/2 Steps to Writing Faster, Better. To enter, please scroll down to the comments, directly underneath the related posts links below. You don’t have to join Disqus to post! Read my tutorial to learn how to post as a guest. (It’s easy!)
