Get Your Emails Read

I have two questions for you:

What do you love about email?

What do you hate about email?

Take a moment. Think about your answers. Say them aloud or write a couple of notes down.

This is important, the most important part of this article. Because if you can answer these two questions for yourself, you’ll start writing emails that are much more effective.

Here’s what I love about email: the way it connects people. I also love how it can be an easy way to convey information.

Here’s what I hate about email: when it’s so confusing that I can’t understand it easily.

Let’s start with the positive: connecting people and conveying information.

When I see an email with a subject line that says “Vancouver visit next year?” or “Writing workshop at LA office,” I smile even before I open the email. Already, I know what it’s about — a visit or a new piece of work. I am primed to read the email and understand it.

Take advantage of the subject line in emails. It’s a way to put your idea in lights. It’s like hanging up a big sign by your email that says, “Here! Look what this email is about!”

Write your subject line before you write the body of the email. Why do I say that?

Writing your subject line will help you clarify your thoughts. Because it’s called a “subject” line, it forces you to decide what is most important about your email. That will help you be focused and better-organized when it comes to writing in the body of the email.

Now, over to the negative. When I start reading an email and then realize that I’m reading the same sentence or paragraph over and over again because I don’t understand it, I get frustrated.

I sigh. I get resentful. What should have taken a few seconds will take much longer — because I, the reader, have to decode the writing so that I can understand it.

This does not put me in a good frame of mind. Furthermore, it’s not my job as the reader. It’s the sender’s job to write sentences that I can understand the first time.

Always keep the reader in mind as you’re writing your email. Choose real words that you’d use in conversation, not business jargon. Not legalese. Not fancy technical words that show how smart you are.

Ask yourself if any sentence is hard to understand. If it is, be ruthless. You must change it — do not make your reader bear that heavy load.

Email. It’s a love-hate relationship. What if it were all love?