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How Successful People Write Emails To Get What They Want (That'll Help You Achieve Your Goals)
Please Excuse Typos
- Spell Check and proofread your email for common typing errors and spelling mistakes.
- Don't say 'Please ignore/excuse Typos' as it only sends the message that you don't care.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
One of the most horrifying statistics for modern knowledge workers is how much time they spend on email. They send, receive, and respond to email for an average of 5.6 hour per workday. According to Cal Newport, our highest value work is rare, valuable, and cognitively demanding.
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Key Ideas
Shockingly Unproductive
- Studies show that employees spend more than five hours per day reading and replying to emails. While it may seem like urgent work, email is not the best kind of work.
- The open office culture in many big and small companies is not conducive to achieving the state of flow, in which we are creative and productive.
Facilitate Deep Work
A few smart strategies that can be deployed:
- Installing pods for deep work while having common areas for collaborative work.
- Wearing headphones that are easily seen to signal that you are not to be disturbed.
- Turning your office into a library, following the same culture of quietness where everyone is hushed and respectful.
Email is not Real Work
Real work, by definition, should be rare, valuable and cognitively demanding.
Email does not check any of these boxes, and is, therefore, a pseudo work.
Avoiding Communication Blunders and Misunderstandings It can be embarrassing to make mistakes with communication. For example, if you send an email without checking it, and later realize that it contained an error, you can end up looking sloppy and unprofessional. But other communication mistakes can have more serious consequences.
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Key Ideas
Not Editing Your Work
Spelling, tone and grammatical mistakes can make you look careless.
- Don't rely on spell-checkers.
- Proofread your work.
- Use a dictionary to look up any words that you're unsure about.
- Reading your work aloud makes it easier to catch typos and tone errors.
- Give yourself time to reflect on your document, and to make any final changes.
Delivering Bad News by Email
Written communication channels don't allow you to soften difficult messages with nonverbal cues.
Delivering a message in person makes it easier to pick up on signs that people have misunderstood parts of your message.
Avoiding Difficult Conversations
It's tempting to try to avoid difficult conversations, but this can cause further problems.
- Preparation is key to handling difficult conversations.
- Use tools such as the Situation – Behavior – Impact technique to encourage your people to reflect on their behavior.
- Role-play your conversation first.