We all use email. It has become an indispensable part of life but applying a few simple rules will make it a much more useful tool. In fact it is hard to imagine life without email despite it being less than 30 years old.
It is this relative newness that creates some of the problems; we are all getting used to communicating this way and online etiquette, manners and protocol are still developing. I’m sure many of you can remember being taught how to write a letter in school, how to address the envelope and the difference between a personal and business letter. I am sure that very few of us have been taught how to write an email despite there being as many different types of email as there are letters.
In the same way as we see the envelope before we open the letter that allow us to make judgements about the letter, such as brown envelopes for bills, we see the email address, display name and the subject of the email in our inbox before we decide if we will open it, save it for later or delete it.
This means that if we want someone to take our emails seriously we need to address the email correctly. Simply put, there should be one subject per email message and the subject should reflect that but in an informative way.
For instance the email may be to set up a meeting but simply putting meeting in the subject tells us very little information where as putting ‘meeting about pre-reg 9th November’ is a lot more informative and is much more likely to be acted on in an appropriate and timely manner.
The name game
You also need to consider the sender name that is displayed. This was either set up with the email account, your settings in your email programme or may default to your actual email address. It is worth checking this as it might surprise you. You may have been rushed when you set it up, you might have chosen your nickname, it might all be in lower case or you might even have spelt it incorrectly. If so, correct it.
How about your email address itself? This is important as you will want to include it on all your stationary, website and business cards. There are two elements to the address. The part before the @: SexiLexie123@hotmail.com may have been amusing when you were 15 but what does it say about your professionalism and will it result in your CV being placed at the bottom of the pile when it comes to a job interview? The part after the @ is usually set by your email supplier such a Google’s @gmail.
Many companies and individuals will have their own domain such as @JohnSmithOpticians.com. An important point to remember with this is that the @JohnSmithOpticians.com also refers to a web address and people will look up www. JohnSmithOpticians.com. If you use a personal domain for your email (john@JohnSmith.com) ensure any associated web pages are appropriate; not all your patients will want to see pictures of you feeding ice cream to a donkey on the beach.
The content of the email is obviously important. One of the simplest things to remember is ‘one message one topic’. Putting several questions into a single email increases the chances that one or more of them will be missed or the meaning will be confused. If you need to discuss more than one topic send a second email.
Establishing set times to look at and respond to emails prevents harmful distraction from the work in hand
Naturally topics will develop and if a conversation thread has diverged from the original topic change the subject line to reflect this, it will also make it easier to find the email in the future if you need to refer to it later.
If you need a reply or want something done by a particular time include an action step and deadline. Ideally these should be at the start of the email as it will allow the recipient to prioritise accordingly.
Remember
Your email is a permanent document covered by the Freedom of Information Act and what you write cannot be unsaid. Always be polite and professional, resist sending angry emails on the spur of the moment and be sparing with who you CC your email to. Also, employers have the right to monitor your email if it is related to work or your employer supplies the equipment that you have used.
It is good email etiquette to avoid acronyms where possible and definitely avoid overuse of capital letters and exclamation marks!
Figure 1: Include an email signature at the bottom of the message
Businesses all have professionally designed stationary so don’t forget your email signature; this is the few lines that are automatically added to the bottom of your message by your email programme. Business advisors suggest that this should be no more than three or four lines of text and for maximum impact should contain a good quality photo. Putting a face to a name increases trust and credibility (Figure 1).
Hiving organised your outgoing mail it is now time to organise your inbox. Resist the urge to check every email the second it arrives. The email may be important but so is what you are working on and if you allow yourself to get distracted even for a few seconds your work will suffer. Set a time when you deal with new email.
Following on from this, establish a work/life separation. Don’t check or reply to any work based email after work hours. This is especially important when you are on holiday. One test is to ask if an email could contain anything important enough to make you fly home, if the answer is ‘no’, don’t open it; it will still be there when you get home.
We need to do some email housekeeping. Like the messy drawer in the kitchen that everything gets shoved into, a messy inbox makes it impossible to find things.
Many email programmes automatically filter spam to a separate folder and they allow you to set rules and filter your email in a similar way. We have already discussed having different email addresses for different recipients and one of the easiest filters is to set up separate inboxes for the different addresses.
You can also set up folders to receive email from individual senders. For instance you might have an eBay folder and a Facebook folder to receive notifications but why not set up a family folder as well?
It is also worth archiving old emails, so set up folders for each year – 2017, 2016 and so on. You can keep the messages in their subfolders within these archives. Periodically drag and drop the old emails en masse and keep your current folders clutter free.
Email is one of the most important tools of the modern age but make sure that it is your tool and you are not its slave.