My team at Durkan Group is always fine tuning our workflow and habits.  Here are some tips that will help improve your workflow and email like a boss.

Email Like a Boss

It is tough to translate what we might feel or say into an email while also sounding professional. This infographic gem addresses bad email habits that we all fall into.  The rewording of these common expressions improve the tone of the email and keeps your message clear and concise.

Credit goes to @danidonovan. Hi-res Printable Version

Keep Things Short

People are busy and their time is valuable. The average person only spends about 13.4 seconds reading an individual email, which is why you should not only keep things short but also relatively straightforward and easy to read.

Brief, to-the-point sentences and bulleted lists will make it easier for your recipient to determine the point of your email.  LifeHacker’s Nick Douglas explains this concept perfectly in his post on how to write a perfect email:

Go through your message and strip out all the self-reference, the second-guessing, and the redundancy. Again, it’s not a problem that you wrote all that. It’s only a problem if you don’t edit it out.

Alternatively, if you receive an email that is too involved to handle in the moment, write a quick response to the effect of, “Hi, got your email. I will have to do some digging into this, but I will keep you updated on my progress!” This will keep you from opening the email, classifying it as a “later” priority, and losing it in the shuffle of read emails in your already overcrowded inbox.  It is also a courteous way to acknowledge the sender’s message until you are able to accomplish the requested task. You can even use Gmail’s Smart Compose feature to auto-finish your sentences for you and help you respond more quickly.

Put the Intent of Your Message in the Subject Line

How often do you receive emails with generic subject lines like “Following Up” or “Just Checking In”?

These vague subject lines not only give little indication of what your email is actually about, but they also make it that much tougher for your recipient to find and refer back to later.

Make the intent of your message clear right from the beginning. A concise subject line should let the recipient know exactly what information or questions you’re going to include in the body of your email.

Use Text to Speech to Review Emails Before You Send Them

Before you hit send on that email you just spent 15 minutes composing use a text to speech tool to read it back.  You will undoubtedly have less missed words and grammar mistakes.

There are a few widgets you can add to your browser to make this easy.  We like one called Read Aloud.  Just select the text, hit the button and listen.
Chrome Extension | Firefox Add-on

Schedule Emails to Send Later

Did you know that most popular email platforms now have the option to schedule your emails to send at a later time?

Using this feature to send the email 20 minutes from now will give you time to review the flow of your message, catch a small typo, and might prevent you from forgetting to include an important detail.

Improve your email etiquette and schedule any emails you write late in the day to arrive the next morning.  It takes one more task off your to-do list while still respecting the other person’s time.

In Closing

Go forth using these tips and click send (or schedule send) on your next email with confidence.  Email like a boss.