The Self-Project: How to Write an Email
September 25, 2007 – 9:01 pmEmail is the most common use of the Internet today. In business, for better or worse, it’s becoming the most common form of communication. I tried keeping up with this for the last month out of curiosity. For every phone call I received, I received five emails. For every in-person meeting/discussion I had, I received six emails.
The worst part of all this is not that communication is becoming impersonal. The worst part is that less than half of the emails were 100% effective. This means that they left something out important- a due date, assignment of responsibility for a task named, appropriate contact info, complete description of the task at hand… I could go on and on naming problems. Every time I received one of these incomplete emails, I end up doing one of the following:
- Having to follow up to ask more questions (wastes my time)
- Take responsibility for an unassigned action (have to re-communicate to everyone involved, maybe incite discussion of whose job it really is, waste everyone’s time)
- Assume an unassigned task belongs to someone else (maybe leaving something I need to do undone)
- File it away and ignore it, hoping that someone will follow up on it if its truly important (I try to never, ever do this, but everyone’s guilty sometime)
It doesn’t have to be this way. Inefficient communication wastes people’s time.
So how can you avoid contributing to the cause? Simple. Write good emails. There’s only three kinds of emails out there in the business world:
- Requests for action/assignment of an action
- Sharing of information
- Something non-business related
In other words, you’re either asking someone to do something, you’re telling someone about something that happened (maybe something you did), or you’re forwarding some silly Internet joke (shame on you- it better be funny. If it is, you better include me).
So let’s take it from the top from here…
How to write a request
Step 1: Be brief.
Step 2: Tell them the five W’s of your request- Who you are, what you want, when you need it by, how you need it (i.e. format, special details), where you want the results delivered to (email me a doc, upload the database to the production server, bring me my coffee, etc).
Step 3: Tell them any supporting info for the request: Who they may need to contact, where they may get documentation/tools needed, etc. Again, the five W’s are your guide. Be sure to give them your contact info and tell them to follow up with you if they need more information. after all, you asked for them to do this.
Step 4: Thank them for their prompt follow-up. Briefly.
Step 5: Check it for extraneous words, details, etc. Clean all of this out, then send it.
How to share information
Step 1: Be brief.
Step 2: Tell them the five W’s of what you’re communicating- Who you are, what you want to tell them, why they need it, how it happened, and when/where it happened.
Step 3: Supply your contact information and tell them that if they need more information to follow up with you (you did volunteer to communicate this in the first place)
Step 4: Thank them. Briefly.
Step 5: Check it for extraneous words, details, etc. Clean all of this out, then send it.
How to share information not related to work
- If they aren’t a friend of yours, just say no.
- If they are a friend of yours, send it to their home address. You don’t want to embarrass them or yourself by them opening this mail while their boss is standing around. Or yours.
- If they’re really friends of yours, forget the email. If you have time to send it, you have time to talk to them. Get up off your butt, get out of your office, and go communicate with some people already!
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