One of my first bosses had a rule: if I was going to take a problem to him, I had to have at least one solution in mind. It didn’t have to be perfect, but I had to take the time to consider some options before dropping the issue on his desk.
It was excellent guidance because it put the responsibility back on me to manage my own issues.
I think that ownership — or lack thereof — is a big part of the problem with email.
It’s so easy to fire off an email asking someone else to do the thinking that we don’t stop to consider whether we could Google the answer faster than asking someone else for information, for example. It sends me to the moon when I get a reply all message that asks questions already answered in the last email. Please, people, read the email before you reply to it. Please?
Because so many of us have bigger email inboxes than we could ever hope to keep up with, TED Curator Chris Anderson and TED Scribe Jane Wulf drafted the Email Charter, with lots of crowdsourced input.
As they’ve asked people to share this to try to create new etiquette around email, I’ll include the whole email 10 commandments here:
| 10 Rules to Reverse the Email Spiral | |
| 1. Respect Recipients’ Time This is the fundamental rule. As the message sender, the onus is on YOU to minimize the time your email will take to process. Even if it means taking more time at your end before sending. 2. Short or Slow is not Rude Let’s mutually agree to cut each other some slack. Given the email load we’re all facing, it’s OK if replies take a while coming and if they don’t give detailed responses to all your questions. No one wants to come over as brusque, so please don’t take it personally. We just want our lives back! 3. Celebrate Clarity Start with a subject line that clearly labels the topic, and maybe includes a status category [Info], [Action], [Time Sens] [Low Priority]. Use crisp, muddle-free sentences. If the email has to be longer than five sentences, make sure the first provides the basic reason for writing. Avoid strange fonts and colors. 4. Quash Open-Ended Questions It is asking a lot to send someone an email with four long paragraphs of turgid text followed by “Thoughts?”. Even well-intended-but-open questions like “How can I help?” may not be that helpful. Email generosity requires simplifying, easy-to-answer questions. “Can I help best by a) calling b) visiting or c) staying right out of it?!” 5. Slash Surplus cc’s cc’s are like mating bunnies. For every recipient you add, you are dramatically multiplying total response time. Not to be done lightly! When there are multiple recipients, please don’t default to ‘Reply All’. Maybe you only need to cc a couple of people on the original thread. Or none. |
6. Tighten the Thread Some emails depend for their meaning on context. Which means it’s usually right to include the thread being responded to. But it’s rare that a thread should extend to more than 3 emails. Before sending, cut what’s not relevant. Or consider making a phone call instead. 7. Attack Attachments Don’t use graphics files as logos or signatures that appear as attachments. Time is wasted trying to see if there’s something to open. Even worse is sending text as an attachment when it could have been included in the body of the email. 8. Give these Gifts: EOM NNTR If your email message can be expressed in half a dozen words, just put it in the subject line, followed by EOM (= End of Message). This saves the recipient having to actually open the message. Ending a note with “No need to respond” or NNTR, is a wonderful act of generosity. Many acronyms confuse as much as help, but these two are golden and deserve wide adoption. 9. Cut Contentless Responses You don’t need to reply to every email, especially not those that are themselves clear responses. An email saying “Thanks for your note. I’m in.” does not need you to reply “Great.” That just cost someone another 30 seconds. 10. Disconnect! If we all agreed to spend less time doing email, we’d all get less email! Consider calendaring half-days at work where you can’t go online. Or a commitment to email-free weekends. Or an ‘auto-response’ that references this charter. And don’t forget to smell the roses. |
I think best in writing. Frequently after talking to a friend or colleague, I’ll contemplate a topic we discussed and send a follow-up email because I feel I can be clearer that way or I thought of something more/better/deeper afterward.
I love email because it allows me to craft my language, to choose my words, rearrange them and check facts — and because I spent years as a deadline journalist, I can do all that rather quickly. I can fire off 800 words without breaking a sweat. And it feels less intrusive, because I figure the recipient can read at his or her convenience and respond whenever it works.
But as a result of the email charter, I’m making a few changes:
- If I’m sending a “just thinking of you” note, sharing a story that called a friend to mind, I’m going to explicitly say either “no need to respond” or “just thinking of you, drop a note if you have time but don’t stress if you’re swamped.”
- I have one friend who typically texts to respond to my emails, another who calls. That’s totally fine and I sometimes say in my messages to them something like “text me, if that works best.” I am looking for a generic line to include in other messages, something like “Get back to me in whatever form works for you, when it’s convenient.”
- I love the subject line that calls out any action the recipient needs to take. I got that suggestion from Lisa Gauchey a year or two ago, and I’m committing to doing it regularly. Instead of sending “New contract for X business,” I’ll make that “New contract for X business — need your signature.”
I’m also a big fan of the conclusion sentence that clearly spells out next steps needed: call me, send me your revisions, let’s talk about this when we meet Friday, etc. When I’m proposing an action, I like to spell out what I’ll do next and when: “Unless you object, I will do X next week.”
Another former boss of mine was known for brevity in emails. What he may have lacked in poetic verbiage he made up for in responsiveness. Because I learned to expect responses that were perhaps sentence fragments at best, I aimed to write emails that could be answered with “yes” or “no,” regardless of the complexity of the issue.
Having practiced explaining the situation and proposing a solution to that other boss was excellent practice.
What can you do to take the email burden off your recipients?
— OR —
Aren’t these suggestions excellent? EOM