Category: Write better emails

Imagine you received an email from a business partner who disagrees with your approach, and you need to help them align with it. Write a response email justifying your recommendation.

Super-concise and skimmable is always going to be more effective, particularly when you need answers or for someone to take action.

There isn’t really a right way to write a subject line. Or, there is, but in the same way there’s a right way to diet, which is to say there are a lot of options, and some people are going to be more uptight about their way than others. We’re not uptight

Earlier this week, a reader forwarded us an email he’d received with this note: “Got a confusing email. Can you help me figure out what’s going on here?” Can we ever!

Over these past few weeks, we’ve all received an onslaught of emails about the coronavirus, from our jobs, from our local governments, from the yoga studios we tried out for a week of free classes back in 2011. Today, we’re going to take a closer look at a few that have hit our and our readers’ inboxes. 

Let’s do a little test. For the rest of the month, you have to do the following exercise every time you cc someone: Write a complete sentence explaining why they are being included on that email and what they need to do.

An optional meeting is a meeting where you truly do not care what the reply will be. The optional attendees can come or not come and the world will be exactly the same. Anything more or less than that? Do not mark the invitation as optional. It’s preferred, recommended, prioritized, pointless, a waste of time — some other adjective that’s not “optional.”