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Too many people write stream-of-conciousness emails, where they figure it out in their head, and don't clean out the cruft after (and if they don't want to read
by ultrasaurus 16y ago
Too many people write stream-of-conciousness emails, where they figure it out in their head, and don't clean out the cruft after (and if they don't want to read it, why would I)
I think people have evolved in response to this to scan every email for 2-3 actionable sentences and stop once their queue is full. The best I can do is to template the email:
[Pleasantries in on paragraph]
-action 1 (in 10 words or less)
-action 2 (in 7 words or less)
[Status updates and other fluff, they can read it or not]
- waleedka 16y agoGood point. Another technique I use is to send unrelated items in separate emails. People tend to use the inbox as a todo list, so getting 3 short emails is easier to manage than one long email. Once you act on one, you archive it and move to the next.
- stcredzero 16y agoThere are others who just act on the 1st email in a group of 3. Fire those people too!
- vacri 16y agoI tend to waffle a bit (well, usually informative, but lots of info), so now at longish emails I go back to the top and put 'summary: foo'. Folks can get the summary and then drill down to detail if they want to. That's not going to help the GPs keyboard problem though.