It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of emails and think you’re getting a lot done. If you’re somebody like Elon Musk and you’re running multiple companies, you can be excepted from the scope of this article. If you’re a college kid with an over-inflated sense of importance, listen up.
E-mails are not indicative of productivity.
There was a time during which I was in constant communication via e-mail. I’d just joined TCO Labs, and was working on various projects of my own on and around campus. In any case, I was receiving a lot of correspondence, and I became rather obsessive about the whole deal. It got to a point where I was checking my mail every hour, replying and responding to relevant stuff, and letting the rest just simmer in my inbox.
Don’t be like me.
E-mails give the illusion that one is being far more productive than one actually is — I could have had a few phone calls that spanned a couple of minutes each, and got a lot more done than through the time I spent crafting all those fantastic e-mails. There’s so much shallow busywork taking when you do e-mail, that you forget that it’s simply a back and forth between people trying to communicate some simple information. This is not your resume. Stop putting that kind of time into it. And if you absolutely must, there are several ways to do it better. Let’s begin.
Infrastructure
I’m going to lay down some ground rules — I don’t care what your OS’s native e-mail client is, it’s rubbish. Be it Apple’s sluggish Mail app (on both phone and computer), any Windows Live Essential software, or whatever rubbish comes with your Android phone, you need to ditch it. These apps, despite being vertically integrated into your phone or computer (or so they claim), were designed and optimized at the turn of the century and haven’t been updated since. This is probably an exaggeration, but I’m trying to emphasize the fact that email has become faster and smarter since these guys last checked, and you shouldn’t be bothered to stick with them out of some false sense of loyalty.
Phones
One of the best e-mail apps right now is Outlook. Yup, that’s right. Microsoft is still making some of Apple’s best software. The Android version isn’t bad either. Here’s why I like it — it can handle plenty of user accounts, has smart flagging, scheduling, and sorting systems that will broadly categorize mails into ‘Important’ and ‘Other’ (although you can manually customize this over time), archiving, and ease of use.
Now, on Android phones you might prefer the default Gmail client, but I assure you that you’re doing yourself a service by standardizing and sticking with Outlook.
Computers
I use Outlook on my computers too. But hold on, I get it. Not all of you are currently studying at universities that just hand over the subscription keys. Luckily, if you’re doing mail on the computer, you have plenty of options, and I’m going to discuss my favourite one. It’s called Nylas — clean, minimalist, and speedy enough to replace Outlook entirely (although at this stage, I’m invested). It’s a fantastic app, and what’s more, is that it’s free. There are premium and business versions with more features, but for what I’m talking about, these work just fine.
The Web
A lot of you apparently still use the web for the majority of your e-mail use. This isn’t a bad strategy, especially if you don’t get a lot of e-mail or aren’t constantly checking it. But if you are trying to get to the next level of digital efficiency when it comes to your correspondence, I’d advise you avoid this alternative simply since it comes at a rather slow cost.
Strategy
Now that we’ve laid down our basic infrastructure, allow me to elaborate on an e-mail strategy that will make you the most efficient communicator in your frat. The first step, is to —
Archive Your Shit
An ‘Inbox’ is really just the abstraction of a physical inbox. Much like an actual inbox, it’s where all your mail is stored when it’s first delivered by the mailman. Now does it make any sense to let all your mail pile up in your inbox? Not really. What most people do with their actual mail, is retrieve it from their inbox, go through it, and then sort further at their leisure. This is the model you should try to replicate with your e-mail.
How do we go about this?
Set up an Archive.
This is pretty straightforward — all the email clients I’ve listed come with a default Archiving feature. Depending on who you have an account with, you might have a default Archive location (such as Gmail’s All Mail). Sometimes, you have to manually create an Archive folder (and these apps will do that for you, at your command). Once that’s done, this is how you do your mail.
- Open up your e-mail.
- Do one round and archive all the spam. Archiving in Outlook can be done by simply ‘Swiping Right’ (can be changed in settings). Anything potentially useful stays.
- Now you should only have emails that are potentially important. Go through them in approximate order of importance — don’t overthink it.
- Reply to each important mail. I’ll tell you how you should be crafting replies further down.
- If the mail no longer needs to be addressed, archive it immediately. If it needs to be addressed in the long term, schedule it (explained below). Only if the email contains content you need in the short term — crucial text or attachments, do you leave it in your inbox. I’ll leave it to you to define short term and long term.
- Rinse and repeat every time you open your client
The idea is that your inbox should only contain the mails you plan to work on in the short term, or want to keep around for reference. This simplified view of your mail is an amazing way to keep track of everything you have to do in general. Once you start archiving and keeping your mailbox down to six or seven mails, it becomes a lot less stressful and a lot more manageable.
Scheduling
Notice that I mentioned that the Inbox should only contain mails you plan to work on in the short term. What about that long term stuff? That has a great solution too. Here’s how you do it —
- After you’ve opened mail, archived spam, and are going through the potentially useful stuff, you might find some mail that doesn’t need to be addressed immediately. What you do now is ‘Schedule’ it.
- An easy shortcut on the Outlook app is to ‘Swipe Left’ (also can be changed in settings) on the mail and then select date and time you want it to reappear.
- It’s going to moved to a scheduled folder — still accessible if you need it.
- The critical thing is that it’s no longer in your inbox and your mental storage. It’ll come back when it’s scheduled to, but until then, you don’t have to be concerned with it.
By combining archiving and scheduling, you get rid of the majority of clutter. You can organize your mail even further by setting up rules — I used to sort mail from specific people into specific folders and so on. However, you’ll find that this isn’t even necessary if you just archive and schedule.
Actually Writing E-Mails
So far, I’ve been dealing with everything that’s not the act of writing e-mail. The reason for this is that you want to minimize the amount of e-mail you write. Several reasons for this —
- It’s very shallow work that feels very important. Allows you to delude yourself into thinking work is getting done.
- It can get highly addictive and very distracting. This also takes time away from the kind of work that actually matters.
- Mail… kinda sucks. It may be enjoyable and addictive for a time, but eventually you realize that it’s just a huge pain in the ass and a time drain. I spend around half an hour a day writing e-mail. This number used to be a couple of hours. Granted, I don’t have that much mail to deal with, but I also address it a lot more differently.
So how do you actually write mail? If you do it, and it this point you’re hopefully avoiding it, you do it really bloody well. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘the ball is in your court’. It’s with this phrase in mind that you must compose e-mails.
Let’s go through this following the structure of an e-mail.
From: Send from the appropriate e-mail address. If it’s school work, do it from the school e-mail. If it’s personal, use your own address. If it’s work, use that. This is semantic, but also helps when it comes to personal clarity and organizing your mail.
To: Send it to the right e-mail address. Do not send it ‘To’ anyone who isn’t expected to reply.
CC: This is important. Use this for people who need to be know the contents of the e-mail but aren’t expected to reply. The reason you do this is to make everyone’s organization and expectations clear.
BCC: This is a shady CC. Use for people you want to share the mail with, without letting others know.
Subject: This is critical. Make it pithy, but comprehensive. A good subject would be ‘Regarding Tax Documents for 2017 Billing Cycle’. A bad subject would be ‘I wanted to ask you about my taxation this year.’ The word ‘Regarding’ is generally a great way to start Subjects. Remember, this is a phrase, not a sentence.
Now for the openers —
Dear [blah],
Classic — use for more formal situations
Hey [blah],
Works in the newer startup led generation of businesses
To whomsoever it may concern,
This works if you’re emailing a team or a support page or anything in that vein.
Now, your first sentence should elaborate on the subject and provide more context, but no gratuitous details.
I was concerned about whether I needed to file taxes this year give that I earnt no income, my dog and wife left me, and I’m now being paid alimony.
This gives the reader a good idea of the context, and with the subject, a fairly good idea of what you need or want to know. But still, state it explicitly.
If I do need to file taxes, which documents should I fill out, and by when?
If you need to organize a meeting, make it incredibly easy for the other party by providing as much information (and also flexibility) as you can.
I suspect we shall have to meet in order to do this in detail. I’m free on Weekdays between Noon and 5, and on Weekends. Let me know which of those times work for you.
Finally, attach or paste all the detailed information they may need in order to process your entire e-mail.
I’ve attached last year’s tax documents to this e-mail and a photograph of my golden retriever below.
And for closers, you have options from the classic —
Yours sincerely,
[Your Name]
The suspicious —
Yours truly,
[Hopefully Your Name]
The grateful —
Thanks!
[Your Name]
Signatures are important — they’re a tremendous source of information. I try to provide e-mail address, phone number, and office address. If you have a fax machine, get rid of your fax machine. That has no place in your mail signature or your 21st century office.
Another point to pay attention to — clarity is a must when writing e-mail. An extra e-mail doesn’t hurt. Confirm appointments or that you’ve read something important, let people know that you’re doing something (don’t leave it dangling), and just try to provide as much information as you can. Address every question they’re going to follow up with from the get go. If you are a generous e-mail writer, you’ll have to do less of it. And less e-mail is good.
