How to Write an Effective Email

How frustrating is it to receive an email that seems to have no purpose, is just one long paragraph, or uses fancy words you have to grab your dictionary for?  Do you ever receive an email and ask yourself “why was this sent to me” or “what should I do with this?”  I bet with all these circumstance you delete them, or better yet mark them “read later” just in case someone comes back and asks you about it.

An even better question is, do you send email which fits any of these descriptions? 

Email is one of those “necessary evils” which everyone uses.  In fact, it’s hard to imagine how we communicated before email.  Email is fast, reliable, and lets you reach out to a lot of people all at once. However, email can be time consuming, vague, or in some cases put strain on a relationship.  This can cause stress, lost productivity, and the inability to get things done.

My email system

Several people, over time, have asked about my email system so I thought I’d share it.  Following the principles of GTD I process my email as quickly as possible and either act on it, delete it, or defer it for a later time (making sure the next action gets on my task list.) I believe the key is to pre-allocate time to check email, and stick to only processing the email and knocking out the quick responses…don’t spend time trying to get everything done at once as it will only slow you down.