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8 Habits of Highly Ineffective Emailing

By Brett Kelly, on Monday, April 9th, 2007

Of all the possible uses for a computer, email is probably the most pervasive (perhaps second only to regular web browsing). From Bill Gates to your Aunt Betsy, everybody’s got an email account these days, possibly multiple accounts. It takes very little effort or know-how to get an email address, and there are literally hundreds of free web-based email services available. It’s easy as pie to send a message halfway around the world in a matter of seconds. That kind of thing is pretty incredible, if you really think about it.

But, alas, many bad habits have crept into the world of email over the years. So many in fact, that (if you ask me) there are things you can do to so badly sour your recipient to your message – they’ll never read the whole thing (or maybe even delete it without ever opening it). Honestly, I’ve deleted many, many emails simply because of infractions like these. Read on for what not to do when sending an email…

Saying Way More than is Necessary – This is one you won’t know the message has committed until at least a third of the way through it. If you find yourself thinking “for Pete’s sake, get to the point…” – you’ve got one of these messages. You see, many people like to treat email like a lazy Sunday afternoon conversation over mojitos – they drone on and on, giving you details and subplots that are only somewhat relevant (and decidedly unnecessary). If you’re a bit of a stickler like I am, these get round-filed with the quickness.
Straying Wildly from the Topic – When the email subject reads “TPS Report Cover Sheet Format” and half-way through you’re reading about Tom’s lunch plans or the new policy on chewing gum in the break room, you know you’ve found one of these jewels. If the author of the email can’t be bothered to formulate a coherent message, a pox on them and their message. Shift+Delete (bypasses the ‘Deleted Items’ folder in most email programs – use with caution).
Send an Email that’s Completely Unnecessary – These are probably my biggest pet peeve of all. Emails that consist of reciprocal greetings or acknowledgments that are just a waste of server space. For example, Ted emails me asking if I can send him the latest office phone list. I send it to him and 10 seconds later I get an email that contains nothing but “Thanks!”. While I understand he’s just being polite, that’s another message I have to read. (I know this may come off as somewhat prick-ish, but you wouldn’t believe the amount of email I get like this). Obviously, If Carl from Facilities donates the bone marrow that helps you beat that pesky cancer, a “thank you” is probably in order – in addition to some flowers or free yard work. Otherwise, just let me get back to work.
Not Answering the Question You’re Asked – A bit less common, but still a regular occurrence in my inbox. I emailed Bill asking how many times he broke his foot in the last year and he might respond with “Well, garsh, I’d have to ask my insurance company or my wife lol!” (even though Bill knows perfectly well it was 4 times). If somebody asks a question, just frickin’ answer it, please!
Making No Effort to Punctuate the Message – “this is no good when are we going to fix this problem i can’t work like this”. I kid you not – it happens to me almost daily. I’m not expecting proper use of a semicolon or any other graduate-thesis-level stuff like that, but a period at the end of a complete thought might be kind of nice. This is typical of people who aren’t touch-typists and spend all of their typing time looking at the keyboard. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but taking a few seconds to go back through the message and add some punctuation will make the recipient much more inclined to take you seriously.
Walking Over to the Recipient 10 Minutes After Sending the Message to Make Sure They Got It – I realize there are certain people who still don’t fully trust “technology” as a whole. They don’t like buying things online, they think every time Windows hiccups it’s because a hacker has taken over their computer and is now using their credit card to finance a trip to Tanzania. That’s all fine, but folks – I implore you – please have some faith in the email system at work. I realize that occasionally emails get lost, but that’s not reason to personally verify the delivery of each and every message you send.

And, on a separate but related note, coming over to ask if I got your email because it’s very important doesn’t work well, either. The beauty of email is that it’s asynchronous. You can send me a message and I’ll read it when I have time, not necessarily the moment you send it. Just let me do my thing and I’ll read your message the very next chance I get, cross my heart. Oh, and if it’s an actual emergency – please, by all means, run over to my desk – but feel free to skip the email.
Leave the Subject Line Blank – This one also grinds my gears pretty well. Unless I know the email is coming and we’ve already talked about it, add a freakin’ subject. It doesn’t even have to be anything terribly descriptive: “Telephone Call” or “Basketball Game”, while terribly vague, at least give me some indication what the email will be about. A blank subject reeks of laziness and is deserving of a swift “Mark as Read”, if you ask me.
Set the Priority to ‘High’ on Every Single Message – Ever heard of “The Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf’”? Same deal. If you think that I automatically jump to read every email with this indicator, you’re sadly mistaken. In fact, I’ll probably just roll my eyes and move on to the next email. Maybe I’m just jaded, but if an email is that important, maybe it ought to be a phone call or an in-person visit. But believe me when I say that, personally, I judge these messages very harshly and will often completely ignore them if they don’t present a situation that is actually of “high priority”.

I know I’ve been guilty of a few of these from time to time, but there should definitely be more care taken when writing and sending an email. After all, people have been convicted and sent to prison based on the contents of emails – would you want the jury to see the email you wrote that said “lol” in it?

(Apologies for the somewhat-agitated tone of this post – it was written after a very rough day at the office ).

Technorati Tags: email, rants, work

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http://www.cunningham.me.uk/wordpress Andy Cunningham

Well, I got someone come by my desk the other day asking if I’d got their e-mail.

“Which e-mail was that?”, I ask.

“The one I just sent”.

“Well, if you were planning on walking over here and discussing it with me, why did you waste time writing it? Eespecially considering I deleted it without reading it because it had no subject line and looked like spam because it had no punctuation. Now, how can I help you?”

Well, that’s what I wanted to say, anyway!
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Beth Walker

I do ~ and will continue to ~ reply with “Thanks” precisely so that the sender will know I got what he/she sent in response to my request. I’d love it if everybody to whom I provide requested information did the same. Second coment: I teach in a university, and each semester, tell my students that I probably won’t open email from them without a subject line. Then the first time they do it, I open it, and reply ~ using as the subject line “I will from now on delete unread any email without a subject line.” I don’t get that twice from ANY student.
David Frey

How about “return receipts”? I HATE those. It’s especially annoying at work because we use Lotus Notes and there is no way to disable responding to return receipts.

With regards to point 3 (sending unnecessary e-mail). I agree that it’s annoying, but who who cares about server space occupied by e-mail anymore? Personally, I don’t want useless e-mail because it decreases the signal to noise ratio of my inbox which makes it harder to find stuff that is useful.
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Fred Busch

My Boss encourages us to walk over and speak to someone instead of writing emails. When I did this the first time, the person replied “If you need me to do something for you, please send an email”.
Rachel

Distrust of technology? That’s my boss. He set up a meeting with the three, whereupon he _read_ us the email he received from corporate. He was more confused about it than we were, but I think by the end of the 30 minute meeting, he had figured it out.
They wanted us to do a certain checklist evey month, instead of the old one we’d been doing.
M3talsm1th

I want to send these points to everyone in my organization, for not one of them can send an effective email. I get mail with no subject, pointless emails that clog up the inbox.
I would like to add one further point though: People who send the whole message in the Subject line. so you open the email and get nothing but a blank form, with a few words in the subject that is meant to tell me everything.
http://rubin.tumblr.com Rubin

9. (but n. 1 on my list) – Using the Subject line as a Body field. – I just hate it when people use the Subject line to type the full content of their e-mail, and then leave the Body field blank. I know they think it’s faster that way, but it’s actually a pain for the reader. Example:

From: xxx@xxx.com
To: yyy@yyy.com
Subject: Hey wanna have lunch together tomorrow?
Body:

Would it kill you to enter “Lunch tomorrow?” as a subject, and then ask your damn question below?
Michael Birks

Regarding Rubin & M3talsm1th

The ‘Subject Line as entire message’ thing _can_ work, it just takes training the flying monkeys to add something like ‘EOM’ to the end of it to signify the End Of the Message.

If it’s done properly, it’s slightly more efficient that Rubin’s suggestion in that you don’t actually need to open the message.

That said, I don’t use the preview pane in any of my email apps, those of my flying monkeys that do it manage to do it properly (it’s equally irritating when EOM is used and it’s _not_ the end of the message), usual disclaimers apply and YMMV.
http://www.allbusiness.com/blog/CustomerServiceExperience/10783/ Glenn (Customer Service Experience) Ross

In my organization, we use “EOM” quite effectively. David, Lotus Notes users can get around the receipt issue by previewing the e-mail, the deleting it unread. I used to do that to my wife until she finally got the message(evil grin).

Finally, my favorite is your #1. Knowledge workers with dominant personalities (Google DiSC profile) will not read an e-mail with 5 or more paragraphs. Just because the new software upgrade is important to you, doesn’t mean it’s important to them. See Manager-Tools.com for a recent podcast on how to write effective business communications.

Great post, Brett!

Regards,

Glenn
http://www.muychingon.com Oscar

I agree with most of your post! Great points, personally my biggest pet peeve is related to the subject line issues.
#1 – Blank subject line. this IMO is the worse of all, especially if you use a threaded view of your e-mail, then all your messages with blank subject lines show up as part of the same conversation when in reality, they have no co-relation to each other.
#2 – The message in the subject line. This is terrible, it is such a big display of laziness I would like to just snap back and flame the offender… but I like my job too much to do this.
#3 – This wasn’t exactly on your list but it is almost equally frustrating when you get a message that has a really really vague subject line like “Question” or something like that. I would say that a 3 word subject line should be mandatory.
http://www.TheVoipProviders.com Fran

I like Beth’s idea regarding the thank you email. Emails are not 100% efficient and they also have downtimes. But for people with busy lives, it’s indeed a waste of time, especially if you get tons of emails everyday.
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Erik

Point #8 is important, you are not jaded!! I see a trend where email is replacing the telephone. If we just called each other and talked we wouldn’t need to spend time hacking away, wondering how to express ourself, who gets/needs/wants a copy or wonder about the recipients state of mind. Then you wait for the answer, you don’t know if or when the recipient is answering YOUR email. This means STRESS and you don’t need that! Many times a phone call can do wonders for everyone. Afterwards a simple email containing information about the important stuff can be sent to all parties concerned and no wasted time with STRESS! Maybe you will improve your network ’cause one thing always leads to another.
Patrick

Attachments are my pet peeve. I’ve asked three times for our corporate IT/PR folks to set PDF as the standard for attachments, so that they are smaller and more universally read. Sending an email, with the message “please read the following memo”, and the attachment is a Word document is just insane.
http://www.MyTimemanagementTips.com Alan

I also consider attachments as a problem but in a different way. When attachment contain only text and nothing else, it’s better if you just copy it to the main message. Others are just sending files with attachments even if it can be in the main message. It’s a waste of time to download those things
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http://www.inblogs.org Emma

I can’t believe that this one isn’t on the list, or mentioned in any comments yet. I absolutely hate when people select the Reply All option when they are only responding to one person. Of all of those things listed, this one gripes me to no end.
Shauna

I used to share an office with two other coworkers. One of my coworkers and I received an email one day from the third letting us know he was feeling sick and going home for the day. We were in the same cramped office!
http://ideamatt.blogspot.com/ Matthew Cornell

How about:

o Not asking for action, or asking for lots of unrelated actions?
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Jimbo

The reason people walk over to confirm that you got an email is not to make sure it got there. Email has been around long enough that there is not a widespread mistrust.

They are just “checking” because they want an answer now, or they want you to do something now. “Checking to see that you got it” is a metaphor for “I realize you have a certain set of tasks and a timetable for those things but obviously mine are more important. So could you help me with my task right now and get back to your stuff later?”
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