If there’s one inevitable factor involved in working through the web, it’s this: Email — and lots of it. Wading through email is a necessary (but time consuming) task.
There’s one type of email feared above all others, and that’s long email. A procession of big, chunky paragraphs stare you down, your hand edging ever-closer to the ‘Later’ label in your email client. That ‘Later’ rarely ever comes.
And you know what? That’s a shame, because sometimes there are good opportunities and lucrative work to be mined from a mountain of words.
Every baddy has an Achilles Heel. Here’s how you can meet and defeat the dreaded long email.
Step 1: Determine who it’s from
The amount of attention you need to pay an email will depend mainly on who it’s from. A potential client detailing the kind of work they require will need a lot of attention. A long request for advice from someone you’ve never heard of (usually the most common kind) can be processed quickly and painlessly with the following steps.
Step 2: Scan until you can answer one question
“What is this email about?”
Most long emails are questions delivered in an extremely round-about way. They can often be broken down into two segments: 1) key questions and 2) unnecessary detail. If your email appears to fit this bill, you can move to Step 3.
Other types of long email include thanks/positive feedback, constructive criticism (or its evil twin, long angry rants).
Scan the email until you can sum up its purpose in a sentence — for example, “They’re telling me they like my portolio and found it inspiring,” or “They hate my guts because of that post I wrote.” Then respond to the sentence you’ve defined, rather than the email as a whole.
Step 3: Look for questions
Scan a long email looking for question marks. These are specific points which require action from you. In most cases, you can ignore unnecessary detail and focus on questions. But before you focus only on the words you need, you’ll need to implement the last step.
Step 4: Find keywords
Let’s say you find this question, buried within a few extra paragraphs:
“I was wondering if there are any free Wordpress themes out there which look similar to the one you’ve designed?”
You might answer: “Yes, this one and this one, but you’ll need to code in the following customizations.”
And receive the following response:
“Didn’t you read my email? I have absolutely no knowledge of HTML and CSS, nor do I ever want to learn. I said so in the first paragraph of the email I sent you.”
Yowtch. That’s a tricky situation to explain, so I’d suggest searching for keywords before answering questions. If you’re about to recommend someone use such and such theme and customize it with a bit of CSS, for example, quickly scan the email or do a word-search for keywords to make sure your answer doesn’t contradict with something they’ve said earlier (or later).
What’s your approach to bloated email?
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22 Comments, Comment or Ping
Ritu
First thing to do when it comes to emails is, in my opinion, check only twice a day if possible ( unless you are expecting something urgent and crucial ).
ABout the long emails, I think one solution would be to create folders and subfolders and filter emails according to email addresses so they go directly to the folders you ahve created based on the email address. This will allow you to recognize emails that you would read anyway if it was in your inbox. And the rest of it, like you said mark it ” later ” and get back to it later.
No wonder, when it comes to emailing the subject line is very important. And unless its a family email, we have got to make our emails short and to the point so as to keep the recepient focused.
My 2 cents
Jan 15th, 2008
pablopabla
Thankfully, I have not been as popular to be receiving so many emails as to eat up my productivity time. LOL! But thanks for the great tips Skellie. They are useful and practical.
Jan 15th, 2008
Matt
Occasionally when someone sends me something that resembles a term paper, I use a handy feature on my Mac, in the program Mail. I select the text, click “mail” then “services” and select “summarize”. It does a fantastic job of summarizing the text within the amount of words/paragraphs you set.
Jan 16th, 2008
Lexi
I apply the Getting Things Done principle (GTD) — if I can read the email in 2 minutes or less, then I do. If, based on the sender, subject and certain keywords, i think the email is important enough but can’t be read in 2 minutes, then it goes into my “For Action” folder to be read later. If it’s interesting but not urgent, then I file it in another folder like “Someday” or one of my topic folders. Otherwise, I simply delete it.
With the GTD approach, both my Email and physical inboxes are almost always empty by the end of each working day. I love how my office looks now ! Too bad, I’m leaving it in a couple of weeks (to work at home instead — yey!).
Jan 16th, 2008
Nicole
Very good sorting points!
Jan 16th, 2008
Mike Smith
Good article.
I have two email addresses; one specifically for business purposes only, and then my other one. I tend to be a fast reader so most of the time, I read all of the emails I receive in my business inbox. Normally, they are replies to quotes I’ve given potential clients, changes for designs or other small things. Some though are huge, but I take the time to read them. I figure the extra 2-3 minutes I spend reading it should be justified by me knowing everything they said to formulate a perfect response
For the “other email address” I tend to delete a LOT of stuff.
Jan 16th, 2008
Nick | Put Things Off
I seem to attract more long emails than I deserve!
Generally I look for question marks — anything that’s actionable usually comes from a question.
Another thing to do is to control the length of incoming mail as much as you can, whenever you can. For example, instead of leaving your email address around your site, link to a contact form. Then just put a character limit on the form. (If you don’t know how to do this, drop me a short email! I’d be happy to help.)
I know someone who worked in the support department at a hosting company. He got so sick of receiving lengthy emails that he successfully convinced his employers to put a 1000 character limit on the contact support form. It’s saved the company hours!
Jan 16th, 2008
Tess
For those of us wanting to clean up our act and not write emails like those discussed above, I recommend the book “Read This: Business Writing That Works” by Robert Gentle. Does what it says on the can.
Jan 16th, 2008
pete
There’s a few serial e-mail novelists here at work, so this post hits close to home. I enjoy responding to their long-winded, self-aggrandizing e-mails with a concise, one sentence response. On particularly mischievous days, I try for one word, but it’s not that often. You hit all of the tricks I use when reading them.
Jan 16th, 2008
Ruchir
Great article, Skellie! I don’t get much email as a blogger but I do get lots as a FAQ writer for games. And yeah, I categorize most of them as “later” and never reply in the end. I’m sure your tips will help me though…
Jan 16th, 2008
Thibault
Well I can not give other recommendation than read them (or at least mine through) I am one sender of long mails, but their content is worth the length.
The reason for that is when you are an expert presenting alternatives to a deciding manager, you have to present the relevant aspects, and consequence of the alternatives.
If you say solution A good, solution B Bad, well the decision is simple you do not need a high level manager to make a decision,
but as an expert you are the last resort if you omit a significant possible consequence of an alternative, nobody else than the expert can be accounted for responsible…
Jan 16th, 2008
Read Scott
Perhaps a life-saver for me. I’m very email challenged and spend way too much time responding to emails that don’t even really need a response beyond, “Okay!”
Jan 16th, 2008
Lovelyn
Good tips. I tend to ignore my emails for as long as possible. Letting them pile up makes the task of answering them more overwhelming with every passing day. I’m going to be better about sorting through my emails from now on.
Jan 16th, 2008
Chad | ProFreelancing
Skellie - Great tips, I don’t get too many emails that I have to do this with, but when the time comes these methods definitely help out!
Ritu - Checking email only twice a day is something that I want to implement, but haven’t been able to do yet. I first heard about this time-saving strategy from the 4 Hour Workweek..but yeah, as a Freelance Writer I’m in constant contact with numerous clients, a few that I do “on-call” work for at higher rates than my other work (because of the convenience for them).
Jan 16th, 2008
Skellie
Hey all — thank you for the extra tips and a few things I hadn’t thought of :-).
@ Matt: Well, I am going to have to try that out. I just got my Mac and I think I’m only aware of about 10% of what it does ;-).
@ Lexi: Congrats on the decision to work from home! I hope everything goes well with the transition.
@ Nick: The character limit is such a cool idea. If you want to email me the instructions I’ll post about it on here :).
@ Pete: Haha, very clever — have they learned their lesson yet? I must admit, I’m a reformed long emailer and I always felt a bit bad when people responded to my novels with short and to the point emails. But it’s a lesson I’m really glad I learned.
@ Thibault: I agree, there are absolutely circumstances that warrant long emails, and certain emails that warrant a good read, regardless of length. I suppose one important tip is to be mindful of the sender and the context when deciding whether to scan.
Jan 16th, 2008
Corinne Edwards
I usually answer with
VERY INTERESTING.
Thanks for including me. We all need to give this a lot of thought.
Unless it really does deserve some attention.
Then, I delete it.
Jan 16th, 2008
Alisha
I admit…I am guilty putting off responding to long emails sometimes. Thanks for the tips to help deal with it, I wish I had the summarize feature that Matt describes!
Jan 16th, 2008
Iacomus
I can safely say that any emails I send are snapshots rather than novels. Sometimes that can be bad.
I do cringe when I receive a book from an associate. Sadly most of what is written is wasted, and if the salient points are not immediately obvious within the first few paragraphs they usually get consigned to the trash.
I do like point 4. Thats one that I will definitely take on board. Good post.
~Iacomus
Jan 17th, 2008
Anthony Lawrence
People who write long emails aren’t good at asking questions: they include irrelevant material.
The saddest thing about it is that they often spend large amounts of time working on it - this drivel didn’t just come pouring out, they edited and re-edited over and over again..
But I always remember this: if they were better at asking questions, they wouldn’t need me. My livelihood depends upon people who aren’t as good as I am at understanding things, so while I may draw a deep breath before diving into some clients mail, I realize that I need them because they need me and I read as carefully as I can to extract the essence of what it is they really want. And then I try to give them the best answer I can..
Jan 17th, 2008
Anthony Lawrence
@Alisha:
So next time you need a new computer, get off that awful Microsoft junk and join the Mac world.. you’ll be so much happier..
Jan 17th, 2008
GG
Great tips in your post. My solution is that I have multiple email accounts. Which is a pain–but helps my management. Also, if I get buried with spam, it is easily changed.
I currently have numerous websites for different things and so have specific forwarded email addresses for those. It helps me to determine what action to take. If your email came to me to subscriber@ or subscriptions@– these people are a priority because they form my mailing list and I want to maintain and encourage long-term relationships.
Unfortunately, I do have to check email regularly throughout the day to time critical stuff–like media contacts on urgent issues. However, the majority of my morning is spent in a sweep and answer. I am not completely coherent and so it is easier to read than actively create.
In the early days, I answered every email. Today I slug through about a hundred or more per day and so it adds up quickly…especially if I have other projects that tie me up.
So, I have come up with a few other strategies.
One of the most valuable is to encourage people to comment on my blogs versus email. This also has the advantage of showing social proof that the blog is valuable and that I do have readers. It also makes it easier for me to answer in the content—often giving me a “post for the day” or topic that needs addressing.
Next, email autoresponders are set up on a couple of accounts to immediately contact the writer and tell them I’ve received the email. It also gives them direction or an idea of what to expect. In many cases, I ask critical contacts to call—or to take another action depending on the information they are seeking.
For instance, I have a media only blog and website where many people contact me. However, I do not answer general public questions from this site. My autoresponder email tells them this and directs them to the proper site. Most of the questions they ask are already answered elsewhere.
If I have content on the site that deals with the question asked, I will usually send them a link. I’ve gone to gmail and save some templates in the drafts section. When I used Eudora, I had standard form answers with the links and explanations.
Since many of the questions ask for information that I get paid for sharing, I might send them directions on how to book and appointment. If they are not serious, they go away. If they are, they book the appointment.
My email accounts include one for social media networking, another for news and contact with those I don’t want to have my primary address. For my multiple website emails? I forward the address specific to the domain into my main box.
Ultimately, I prioritize and check everything in the am and my main box up to about four times a day. I don’t use IM because I prefer to not be interrupted—so instead, I select when I check email when pending projects require it.
I hope I didn’t lose you or make this sound crazy. It works for me—and I do use many of your suggestions—most of which I use and find valuable.
Jan 17th, 2008
Honest Abe
1. write back with the request to never send lengthy messages.
2. ask for an abstract and conclusion
3. ask them to be direct re their questions
4. phone back with your response (call at the hour when you know your call will go to their voice mail).
Don’t spend your valuable time writing up a long response.
Jan 18th, 2008
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