What You Send is What You Receive
We harp endlessly about email. Our gripes are many, varied, and often justifiable:
- There’s no subject.
- I’m cc’d on an email with no idea why or what I’m supposed to do with it.
- They’re long and rambling with no point or purpose.
- There’s no reference, just “Okay, let’s do it!”
- They replied to my email, but it’s obvious they couldn’t be bothered to read it.
- I get emails with attachments but no explanation for the attachment… and on and on.
There’s no question that we’re all suffering from the effects of misused email. Still, we often criticize the sender while conveniently absolving ourselves of any blame. “After all,” we claim, “I can’t control what comes to my inbox.”
The Email You Send Begets the Email You Receive
It may be true that we can’t control our inboxes, but we can affect our inboxes. What do I mean by that?
Consider someone guilty of committing the following email faux pas:
- adding cc recipients as often as possible
- frequently sending jokes and other irrelevancies
- marking most of their emails as “high priority” or “urgent”
- asking questions of others that they could have answered on their own
- failing to state what the recipient is supposed to do with an email
- pushing information and needless attachments onto colleagues, suggesting it’s important
- assigning tasks to others that they could have handled themselves
- frequently using “reply to all” when it’s unnecessary
Undoubtedly, anyone guilty of committing the above “email atrocities” is an ideal recipient for the same abuse landing in their own inbox.
Casting blame accomplishes nothing. The first step to any change begins with you. It starts with a commitment and an understanding that the emails you send will – sooner or later – mirror the emails you receive.
A crucial first step in becoming an email minimalist – before you even begin to type the first letter – is to stop and consider the purpose of the email you’re about to send. Why do you want to send it, and what do you want the recipient to do? This simple act of thoughtfulness and consideration that precedes an email will have a marked effect on what you send.
Sending Email’s Just Too Damned Easy
Because email fosters spontaneous and superficial communication, the typical “knowledge worker” will spend a quarter of their day fielding a mishmash of impulsively sent emails.
We painstakingly read, sort, file, and respond to possibly hundreds of unnecessary requests, anecdotes, and suggestions, fearing we will overlook the three or four that are actually important.
As senders, how often do we have a question, problem, or concern, and rather than applying some deep thought and analysis, we slap out an email, hit send, and just like a game of “hot potato,” the problem lands in someone else’s hands.
It’s now up to them to sort it out or take it to the next logical step.
It’s beautiful. With a simple click to one or more colleagues, we’ve cleared our plate … until we come back from lunch to see that many of our colleagues have dumped a load of their issues into our inbox.
The Emails You Don’t Send Can be as Important as the Ones You Do Send.
When you refrain from sending emails, you cannot help but decrease the stress and distraction of others. We’re not paid to do email, so it only stands to reason that as long as people are “doing” email, they can’t do their job.
Let’s begin the practical steps to becoming a skilled and efficient email minimalist.
The first and most crucial step is to become mindful of the receiver.
Before you send an email today, be sure to take a moment and ask yourself these two simple questions:
- Why am I sending this email?
- What do I want the recipient to do?
Suppose you can answer those two questions before you begin writing. In that case, you’re already on your way to creating a purposeful email.
Email is Not a Substitute for Conversation or Communication, but it’s Perfect for Sending the ABCs.
Email is a great way to share information, so let’s examine the ABCs of appropriate use of email.
Appropriate Information: Following a meeting or telephone conversation, you may need to follow up with related documents, attachments, and directly associated material.
Basic Facts: Directions, notices, agendas, straight-up information. These messages are an end in themselves and do not require a reply.
Confirmation: “This is a summary from our morning meeting on the Hatfield building project. The following is the budget, the time frame, and the individual assignments.”
- “Here are the minutes from last Friday’s meeting and the proposed agenda for next Friday’s meeting.”
Simple Directives
- “Please send me the monthly sales results.”
- “Please schedule a team meeting for next Thursday.”
Most of the above messages could theoretically end with “no reply necessary.”
Granted, email can be used beyond the scope of the above-outlined ABCs, but not without awareness, thoughtful consideration, and a clear understanding of your desired intention.
Suppose you restrict the email you send for the purposes outlined above. In that case, you will have begun to take the first and most important step… because, after all, change begins with you.
You may think, “Hey, I’m just a small fish in a large pond. I can’t affect what goes on in my office and elsewhere.” But the fact is you can. You can change what happens in your world. The email you send will quickly reflect the email you receive.
If you begin to change your email habits and decorum, before long, you can approach your immediate colleagues and team members and decide on a set of email guidelines that you can all agree on.
When you demonstrate thoughtful, considerate email practices, you’ll begin to influence your team.
When your immediate circle sees the benefits of email respect and consideration, you can reach out further as a group to influence a wider circle.
We all suffer from the same email burdens, but most of us go along with the status quo, feeling helpless to effect change.
Take responsibility for the emails you send; before long, you’ll affect the emails you receive.
When in Doubt, Pick Up the Phone
As I was writing this piece, I could hear my wife, Michele, in the other room cursing and muttering, which, to say the least, is the most unusual behaviour for her.
In fact, today itself is a little uncommon because Michele’s working from home due to an unexpected blast of torential rain.
So, with curiosity getting the better of me, I walked over to see, “What’s up?”
Without looking up from her laptop, she said, “This is the third email I’ve received from this woman. She keeps asking me to reply to a bunch of questions, but either the questions are wrong or the attachments are wrong. The two things don’t line up.”
“So what are you doing now?” I asked.
“I’m sending her an email for the fourth time telling her I don’t have the necessary attachments to answer her questions.”
Never one to miss an opportunity to offer advice, and with an air of puffed-up authority, I suggested that rather than sending a fourth email that this person wouldn’t understand, perhaps it might be better to pick up the phone and see if a conversation could bring this escalating fiasco to a quicker conclusion.
I don’t know if it was just to shut me up, but Michele made the call. I went back to work, but I couldn’t help but hear Michele say not once, not twice, but three times, “Ellie, you’re not listening.”
As it turned out, Ellie was adamant that she had sent the proper attachments, and Michele was just as insistent that she hadn’t.
After several more minutes of confusion, Ellie finally opened each attachment and compared it with her queries.
At last, she saw the mistake. Although she had sent the correct files and attachments, the questions she had asked in the body of her email were meant for another vendor.
So, here’s an all-too-common case of email misuse at its highest order.
Michele could have sent fifty emails saying, “You didn’t send me the attachments I need.”
Ellie would be doing something when she heard her “you’ve got mail” notification. She would stop her work to open it and, while presumably thinking of her present task, abruptly fire off a fourth, fifth, or thirty-seventh email back to Michele or whomever, all the while muttering about the stupidity of people and how they just can’t be bothered to read their emails.
Why is email so wildly ineffective in scenarios like this? Because email is not a communication tool.
It took Ellie and Michele a full three minutes of focused effort and live conversation before coming to the “Aha!” moment.
Whenever you receive an email that leaves you confused about the sender’s meaning or intent, surprise the sender by picking up the phone. It’ll save a lot of time and a lot of grumbling.
Mastering Email… to Reduce Stress and Maximize Your Health and Productivity (15 Part Series)
- Understanding the Irresistible Call of Email
- Email: “What Hath God Wrought?”
- Email: Since We Can’t Live WITHOUT it, Let’s Learn to Live WITH IT
- Understanding Email Stress – It’s All a Matter of Perspective
- The High Cost of “Free” Email
- How to Manage Email So That It’s NOT Managing You
- How to Empty an Over-flowing Email In-box
- You’ve Achieved an Empty In-box… Now What?
- It’s NOT Just the Emails You Send … Equally Important are the Ones You Don’t Send!
- How to Become an Email Minimalist
- Living the Life of an Email Minimalist
- Writing the Message: The Body of Your Email
- The Bits and Pieces of Effective Email
- D’oh! I Can’t Believe I Sent That Email!
- How Quickly Should I Respond to Email?