The Art of Brief Emails

Words like sunshine. The more focused, the deeper the harness. ~ Robert Southey

Emails are like a plague. They spread quickly. They infect you until you are covered with ulcers and can not do anything useful. And in the end they leave the streets covered with corpses.

Well, maybe emails aren't exactly like the plague.

But they can fill your entire day if you let them. Welcome to the world of brevity.
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Achieve mastery in the art of writing compressed letters, and you will be able to convey important information to others without taking a lot of time from yourself or your interlocutor. You will also inspire others for short answers. And, getting rid of the excessive chatter in the letters, you will become better to write.

Tips for writing short letters.

• Skip the subject line. This is contrary to the belief that the title is the most important for those who view the inbox list. I personally look at the sender to understand whether you need to read the letter or not. And I easily see the first line of text in the list when I use Gmail. So the headline becomes unimportant. Just skip it and go to the text.
  Comment. Some people think that this is ill-mannered, so find out what your interlocutor expects. With friends, family and colleagues this method works. In more formal letters, you will have to specify a topic, and, most likely, you will have to refuse some other further advice.
• Reduce the letter to a few sentences. I constantly promote the rule of five sentences , and, in fact, if you keep within 2-3 sentences, it will be even better. The limits set make you shorter - like a haiku.
• Skip the greeting. Naturally, etiquette makes us greet each other. But most of the letters we write to friends and colleagues, and they do not care. Their time is valuable. Go to the point.
• Skip the signature. I hate long signatures, especially from those with whom I communicate regularly. I already know all about them, why remind me again? Just a signature, as short as possible. My usual signature is leo, but if I know a person well, I will leave it out.
• Narrow the subject. If you find that a letter is long, it usually means that you are trying to cover too many topics. This leads to problems - the recipient may miss a certain part, for example. Choose one topic and go to the bottom line.
• Edit. I know you go write, send and forget. Well, it is rude in relation to the recipient. You kind of say that he doesn't deserve a good letter. I'm not saying that you need to spend an hour, bringing the letter to perfection, but you can re-read it within 10 seconds, remove unnecessary sentences and words, and do a great service to the recipient.
• Think about whether to send it at all. Sometimes letters are not needed. Before you send, or even before writing, think about whether they need your “thank you” or “understand” or something else like that. Sometimes they are needed, but if a person sent you a letter “understood”, then you should not send him a reply “thank you!”.

If you know people who need to read this article, send them an email. A short.

If you need a lot of words to express what you think, think again. ~ Dennis Roth

About the author:

Leo Babauta is a blogger and author of several books. One of his blogs, Zen Habits, has become one of the 100 most widely read Technorati versions.

Photo: jubewong