• Be concise.• Communicate "action steps" first, not last.• Number your questions.• Make the way forward clear.• Include deadlines.• Use "FYI" for emails that have no actionable information.• Tell them that you'll get to it later.• Don't send "Thanks!" emails.• Never send an angry or contentious email.• Never "reply all" (unless you absolutely must).

The idea is to keep your responses short and to the point, which is nothing new, but to create kind of a mental template so you get in the habit of writing efficient, concise, and polite emails with ease. These suggestions also will help you ignore email you don't have to reply to and keep you from creating more email for yourself.

Email Writing Values: Keep it Relevant [Writing]from Lifehacker by Whitson Gordon

The more information you stick into one email, the more likely your recipient is going to lose focus on what's important. Here are a few ways to keep your email relevant to the task at hand.

Use Descriptive Subject Lines

We already talked about the importance of your email's subject line, and how useful it is for keeping concise messages. Even if you're not using the End of Message (EOM) trick, though, you want to keep your subject lines descriptive. Email subjects like "Question for you" or "Important!" are pretty much useless to the recipient.

Instead, use a subject that clearly defines what the email is going to be about. As Gina mentions in the Lifehacker book, you can still use certain descriptors as tags (i.e. "Important!: H.R. needs your new contact information"), but you want to make it easier for your recipient to differentiate between it and other "important" emails.

Create New Threads when Changing the Subject

Similarly, if you're having a conversation with someone over email, it can be easy to go on tangents. When you do, you want to start new thread rather than continue the old one. Blogger Philip Guo puts it best:

If your reply is not relevant at all to the subject line, start a new thread with a fresh subject line which more accurately reflects the email's actual contents. It's annoying to open an email thinking that it's about "Re: Deadline reminder"

when it's actually really about "By the way, how do I log into our servers?"

Not only does it help the person you're communicating with organize their thoughts, but if you ever have to find that conversation later on, it'll be easier to find if the subject line is always relevant to the message's content. Just like you want to separate actionable items, you want to keep your conversations separate as well.

Keep it Concise

We've already talked about the importance of concision, but the easiest way to keep your messages relevant is to keep them brief. The shorter your message, the fewer "hey, how are you doing" and other off-topic rants you're likely to throw in unnecessarily. Summarize the important points, give them something to act on, and be done with it. You'll be a lot more likely to get the desired response if you don't stray from your message's purpose.

Email Writing Values: Make it Easy to Act On [Writing]from Lifehacker by Whitson Gordon

We all get tons of work email a day, and our inboxes can get cluttered in the blink of an eye. Make sure your emails actually have a purpose (and don't get skipped over) by making them actionable.

While it's incredibly important to be concise in your emails, it's just as important to make sure your recipient can actually do something with what you've given them. We've always been big advocates of using the trusted trio of emailfolders, and taking all follow-up items and adding them to a separate to-do list. Here are a few tips to make sure emails you send follow that trajectory.

If Your Message Doesn't Have a Purpose, Don't Send itAs Gina notes in the Lifehacker book:

Every email message has a very specific purpose. Either you are conveying information or requesting action from the recipient. Before you click that Compose button, know what you expect to get out of the exchange. If you don't know your message's purpose, don't write it.

The whole point of email is to get a response from the recipient, whether that's completing a task, responding with answers to your questions, or something else. If you can't quickly figure out what sort of to-do your message will produce, you probably need to rethink why you're sending the message in the first place.

Focus Your Action ItemsMake sure you aren't including too many actionable items in one email, and that the items you are including are related, or they can get lost in translation. Even if your recipient reads and acts upon the email (which becomes less

likely the longer and more roundabout it is), you might only get a portion of the actionable items finished if you include too many or don't focus them enough. When possible, stick to one action item per email to make sure everything makes it onto the recipient's to-do list.

Obviously, not every message you send can be so pigeonholed, but the more often you stick to clear, concise emails that elicit a specific action or response, the more likely you're going to get what you want out of the exchange.

Email Writing Values: Clarity Is Key [Writing]from Lifehacker by Adam Pash

You know those emails you read once, read again, and still aren't sure what the sender's trying to say? It's annoying, right? We all recognize a terrible email when we get one, but we're often guilty of the same email sins ourselves.

It seems unmistakably obvious: In order to be understood, any form of communication needs clarity. But email is a fast-paced medium, and essential writing values like clarity often take a back seat to time. The problem: Rather than taking a few extra minutes to re-read and vet your email, you send it, no

one understands it, and you spend more time working out the miscommunication.

Let's talk a little bit about how you can introduce more clarity in your email.

Note: When we talk about email writing values this week, we're talking primarily about work-related email. If you're emailing a note to a friend, go nuts with whatever style of writing you prefer.

Garbage In, Garbage OutAs Gina put it in the the Lifehacker book:

The old computer science adage, Garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) means that if you give a computer the wrong input, it returns useless output. Humans are a lot more forgiving than computers, but in many ways GIGO applies to email correspondence as well.

When you're composing (or editing) your email, the purpose of your email should be clear from the subject line and maintain that clarity throughout. Don't make the recipient decipher what you want. Be up front from the start and don't muddle down your email with unnecessary language.

Clarity Is Better Than ClevernessYou may fancy yourself a masterful wordsmith, but don't let your words get in the way of your message. In The Art of Unix Programming, author Eric Steven Raymond lays out the Basics of Unix Philosophy, and as we've pointed out before, these rules often apply beautifully to other areas of personal productivity.

Consider, for example, the Rule of Clarity, which argues that "Clarity is better than cleverness". We receive hundreds of emails in the Lifehacker inbox every day, and I thank the gods every time I see an email with a clear subject line and an easy-to-grok question, suggestion, or tip; I curse the email providers whenever the message is buried in its own language.

Next time you're composing an email, give an extra ounce of attention to clarity. Can you understand what the email is about by the subject line? Are you burying your message? If not, good for you! If you're not a saint (I'm not), reevaluate your email miscommunications. Lack of clarity is almost always the culprit in my inbox.

How about you? Let's hear about the email rules you live by in the comments.

Email Writing Values: Concision, Concision, Concision [Writing]from Lifehacker by Adam Pash

Most of us don't w⇒ant to read through three paragraphs of text when we could get the message in one, but that doesn't mean we're not guilty of inflicting the same lack of email concision on others. Here are some helpers.

Before we get started, I should preempt this post with a concise summary of the helpful suggestions below, in case you don't want to wade through all that pesky text:

• In your email, be brief and to the point.• Cut it down to subject only if you can with EOM.• For most email, try to keep it under five sentences.

Note: When we talk about email writing values this week, we're talking primarily about work-related email. If you're emailing a note to a friend, go nuts with whatever style of writing you prefer.

Get It in the SubjectYour subject line sets the tone for your entire email: Don't throw it away. Instead, try making it into a clear statement of what's going to be in the email. In fact, if you can say everything in the subject, you can stop there and go with the old End of Message (EOM) trick. Essentially, you write out your subject, add (EOM) to the end of the line, and hit send.

If it sounds like an esoteric trick, it's not as unusual as you may think. Gmail won't even prompt you about sending a message without any text in the body because it understands what EOM is all about.

Treat Email Like SMS, and Whenever You Can, Keep It Under Five.Sentenc.esWhen you're trying to make your email more concise, it might help to try imposing a strict philosophy along the lines of five.sentenc.es:

The Problem

E-mail takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow for

those who receive a lot of it.

The Solution

Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it's too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.

five.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be five sentences or less. It's that simple.

The site suggests adding some text to your email signature pointing the recipient toward five.sentenc.es in explanation of your brevity; you can also get more extreme with four.sentenc.es, three.sentenc.es, or two.sentenc.es.

When It's Really Long, Consider Writing an Email Abstract

Photographer and blogger David Friedman at Ironic Sans wishes that his email client would alert him when he's written a particularly long email, then prompt him to write a summary that will appear at the top of his emails—he calls it the email abstract field. We're still waiting for Google to add it in as a Gmail Labs feature, but in the meantime, there's nothing stopping you from taking Friedman's advice in your own emails.

It's silly to think you can keep every single email communique below five sentences, but when you can't be brief, you can still offer a concise summary of what you're aiming for in all that text that follows. It helps the reader know what to expect, and it helps you clarify your message.

Of course, you don't need to use any site to explain your concision. Just keep it clear, keep it concise, and your recipients will thank you.

In a recent blog post, venture capitalist Fred Wilson talked about his ongoing struggle with email management and the various solutions he’s tried, concluding: “Every time I make a productivity gain, the volume eventually overwhelms me.” It’s a familiar problem. We’re all extremely busy, and we all get too much email. So what to do?It’s time for a more mindful approach, one that fully embraces a “less is more” strategy. To help you get started, we’ve assembled a cheat sheet of our email best practices. And, trust us, it’s not just about being more polite, it’s about being more efficient and getting the responses you need.

1. Be concise.Do you like getting long emails? No? No one does. A good rule of thumb is to strive to keep emails to one line or less. If they can’t be that short, challenge yourself to keep them as concise as humanly possible. Your contact is just as likely to be checking the message on a smartphone as on a desktop computer, and shorter is easier to digest – which means you’re more likely to get a response.

2. Communicate “action steps” first, not last.It’s standard practice to begin an email by summarizing what happened at a meeting or during a phone conversation, then following on with any “action steps” that emerged. But this makes it easy for the most important information to get lost in the shuffle. By reversing this order – and listing actions steps first and foremost – you keep the attention on the items you want to draw attention to.

3. Number your questions.This is Email 101. If you’re not doing it already, it should be standard protocol to break out multiple points or questions as numbered items in all email correspondence. If you don’t, you risk having that customer or client only respond to the first question that happens to catch their eye. (And now you have to write another email to ask them about it again.) A good rule of thumb is to strive to keep emails to one line or less.  4. Make the way forward clear.Emails that offer nothing but a “What do you think about X...?” are generally ineffectual. Always be proactive and take the lead in your

communications so that the way forward is completely clear. If you’re proposing a deal, do a bullet-pointed outline of the parameters from the get-go. If you want to “run something by” a superior, share your approach and ask them if they agree. They may not, but giving them a starting point, something to react to, is MUCH more likely to get a response than waiting for someone else to make the first move.

5. Include deadlines.Some people think that handing out deadlines can seem dictatorial. On the contrary, I’ve noticed that successful busy people welcome a deadline. It helps them integrate the tasks into their schedule. If a response from them is imperative, politely include a deadline: “For the project to stay on track, I need a response from you by 1/18.” If a response is optional, communicate that as well: “If I don’t hear back from you by 1/18, I’ll proceed with the solution I’ve proposed.”

6. Use “FYI” for emails that have no actionable information.Some emails need to be shared to keep everyone in the loop. But non-actionable correspondence should be labeled as such – so that it can be prioritized accordingly. At the Behance office, we use a simple “FYI” tag at the top of all emails that contain information that you are not required to act on. It allows for easy filtering of non-actionable emails, whether by scanning visually or setting up a rule in your email client. 7. Tell them that you’ll get to it later.If someone sends you an urgent email that you can’t get to today (or this week, or this month), write them a quick note to let them know, specifically, when you will get to it. You’ll quell their anxiety, and save yourself a future nagging email from them. It also preserves

goodwill: Explaining now why you won’t get to something until later is much more effective than apologizing later. Non-actionable correspondence should be labeled as such – so that it can be prioritized accordingly.  8. Don’t send “Thanks!” emails.If you don’t have anything substantive and/or actionable to say, don’t send the email. Refraining from sending the one-word “Thanks!” email is tough, because it can feel ungrateful. But at this juncture, we’re all probably more grateful for one less email.

9. Never send an angry or contentious email.Email is a severely limited medium when it comes to conveying tone, which is why angry emails are never a good idea. More often than not, they just create more anxiety – and more email. Occasionally, writing an angry email can be therapeutic. If this is the case, get it off your chest, and then delete the email. When a confrontation is brewing, a conversation in person or on the phone is almost always best. Emails leave too much room for misunderstanding.

10. Never “reply all” (unless you absolutely must).If you’ve received an email sent to a large group of people, do your best to avoid replying to all when you respond. If that person was qualified to send the email, typically they can be relied on to be the point person who collates the responses. Keep in mind: If using the “reply all” feature really seems necessary, you are probably having a conversation that would be better (and more efficiently) had face-

to-face.

In a recent blog post, venture capitalist Fred Wilson talked about his ongoing struggle with email management and the various solutions he’s tried, concluding: “Every time I make a productivity gain, the volume eventually overwhelms me.” It’s a familiar problem. We’re all extremely busy, and we all get too much email. So what to do?It’s time for a more mindful approach, one that fully embraces a “less is more” strategy. To help you get started, we’ve assembled a cheat sheet of our email best practices. And, trust us, it’s not just about being more polite, it’s about being more efficient and getting the responses you need.

1. Be concise.Do you like getting long emails? No? No one does. A good rule of thumb is to strive to keep emails to one line or less. If they can’t be that short, challenge yourself to keep them as concise as humanly possible. Your contact is just as likely to be checking the message on a smartphone as on a desktop computer, and shorter is easier to digest – which means you’re more likely to get a response.

2. Communicate “action steps” first, not last.It’s standard practice to begin an email by summarizing what happened at a meeting or during a phone conversation, then following on with any “action steps” that emerged. But this makes it easy for the most important information to get lost in the shuffle. By reversing this order – and listing actions steps first and foremost – you keep the attention on the items you want to draw attention to.

3. Number your questions.This is Email 101. If you’re not doing it already, it should be standard protocol to break out multiple points or questions as numbered items in all email correspondence. If you don’t, you risk having that customer or client only respond to the first question that happens to catch their eye. (And now you have to write another email to ask them about it again.) A good rule of thumb is to strive to keep emails to one line or less.  4. Make the way forward clear.Emails that offer nothing but a “What do you think about X...?” are generally ineffectual. Always be proactive and take the lead in your

communications so that the way forward is completely clear. If you’re proposing a deal, do a bullet-pointed outline of the parameters from the get-go. If you want to “run something by” a superior, share your approach and ask them if they agree. They may not, but giving them a starting point, something to react to, is MUCH more likely to get a response than waiting for someone else to make the first move.

5. Include deadlines.Some people think that handing out deadlines can seem dictatorial. On the contrary, I’ve noticed that successful busy people welcome a deadline. It helps them integrate the tasks into their schedule. If a response from them is imperative, politely include a deadline: “For the project to stay on track, I need a response from you by 1/18.” If a response is optional, communicate that as well: “If I don’t hear back from you by 1/18, I’ll proceed with the solution I’ve proposed.”

6. Use “FYI” for emails that have no actionable information.Some emails need to be shared to keep everyone in the loop. But non-actionable correspondence should be labeled as such – so that it can be prioritized accordingly. At the Behance office, we use a simple “FYI” tag at the top of all emails that contain information that you are not required to act on. It allows for easy filtering of non-actionable emails, whether by scanning visually or setting up a rule in your email client. 7. Tell them that you’ll get to it later.If someone sends you an urgent email that you can’t get to today (or this week, or this month), write them a quick note to let them know, specifically, when you will get to it. You’ll quell their anxiety, and save yourself a future nagging email from them. It also preserves

goodwill: Explaining now why you won’t get to something until later is much more effective than apologizing later. Non-actionable correspondence should be labeled as such – so that it can be prioritized accordingly.  8. Don’t send “Thanks!” emails.If you don’t have anything substantive and/or actionable to say, don’t send the email. Refraining from sending the one-word “Thanks!” email is tough, because it can feel ungrateful. But at this juncture, we’re all probably more grateful for one less email.

9. Never send an angry or contentious email.Email is a severely limited medium when it comes to conveying tone, which is why angry emails are never a good idea. More often than not, they just create more anxiety – and more email. Occasionally, writing an angry email can be therapeutic. If this is the case, get it off your chest, and then delete the email. When a confrontation is brewing, a conversation in person or on the phone is almost always best. Emails leave too much room for misunderstanding.

10. Never “reply all” (unless you absolutely must).If you’ve received an email sent to a large group of people, do your best to avoid replying to all when you respond. If that person was qualified to send the email, typically they can be relied on to be the point person who collates the responses. Keep in mind: If using the “reply all” feature really seems necessary, you are probably having a conversation that would be better (and more efficiently) had face-

to-face.