How to make Email work for you

Email – we can’t live without it, we don’t know how to live with it. Our use of email has risen exponentially in the past years. Campaign Monitor estimates the number of business email users in 2020 at around 4.04 BILLION. The average office worker receives 120 work emails per day. Now, not all those emails are important. Up to 50% are spam or unwanted offers. However, those that are important sometimes get lost in the ocean of spam.

So, how can we make email work for us rather than against us and our sanity? First is to learn how to write emails so that the information comes across easily and quickly. People will read just the title of the email, so make sure the title says it all, or at least ensures that the reader opens the email to read the rest.

Second, make sure the “To:”, “cc:”, and “bcc:” is used in the right way. If you are sent an email with your name in the “To:” box, then it is because the person sending the email wants you to do something (action) or say something (comment). If your name is in the “cc:” box, then the email should be for information only and you are not expected to take action.

Thirdly, create separate folders so you can store your emails and be able to find them again easily. Once you touch an email, it’s recommended that you act, and either reply and delete or store, or place in an “Action Later” folder. This will make sure that you don’t have too many emails in the “IN” box, and it gives you a clear overview of the emails you do have and the actions you have to take.

Now we are ready to write our email. The problem is that when we write an email and when we read one, our perspectives and expectations change. When we read an email, we read it as a letter, however when we write an email, we often write it as we would speak. This causes untold confusion and possible conflicts. We write as we would speak, yet reading an email, we don’t get the intonation, the voice, and meaning that voice brings us, so we can easily take the email the wrong way. This means that when you write an email, you should think about how the recipient will read it, and re-phrase accordingly.

We also have a tendency to over react to emails. Have you ever come into the office on a Monday morning, still sleepy, and receive in your in-box an email that is just downright rude? You quickly bang out a reply, and send it off with a self-satisfied “hah”. 3 hours later, you re-read what you wrote and think “Oh dear – what have I just done?”. Well, to avoid this, then do by all means write the email, but send it to your “Draft” folder instead and then after lunch (when you are more awake and have more sugar in your blood) then re-read the mail, and change the wording before it starts World War 3.

If you can, answer the “Who, What, When, Where and How” questions that the reader will have in their minds. Also, always proofread your email for grammar, understanding, clarity and flow. This saves time later, in explanations and in answering questions.

Finally, if you want the recipient to read your email and understand quickly what you want to say, then put the information in an easy to read format. Bullet points. Short sentences. Facts, not pages of information. You can always attach the pages of information to the email in a document apart, if necessary.

So, if you want email to work for you rather than against you, then ensure that you actively do all you can do – or simply pick up the phone.

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