Campaign for short emails
Would you prefer we all wrote short emails?
I’ve been thinking about short emails lately. I’ve had some busy days when I couldn’t attend to emails, and the number that accumulated in my inbox seemed too overwhelming to even start to tackle.
And then A created a new account for me that I’ve managed to keep to zero, and I’d love to keep my main account like that. Which got me thinking that it would be so much easier to manage emails if I could respond in a much more abbreviated way than most people seem to do.
Maybe it’s my long Twitter habit that has made me want to be more sparing with words, but recently I’ve been getting bored with starting every email in a long correspondence with a greeting and then choosing a suitable sign-off.
It’s started to feel very old-fashioned in this day of rapid information exchange. I would rather just launch into the subject we’re discussing, and not bother with a sign-off, but some people might find that rude.
Then I spotted an article about short emails as I was surfing, and discovered people have been talking about this since way back when. I think 2007 was the date of the first article I read. I found a website – or appropriately, a single page, in fact – called five.sentenc.es, which suggests treating email responses like SMS messages, but instead of counting characters, count sentences. So ‘all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be five sentences or less’.
And there are identical pages for two.sentenc.es, three.sentenc.es, and four.sentenc.es, all with a variation on the following text to copy and paste into your email:
Q: Why is this email five sentences or less?
A: http://five.sentenc.es
I’ve never seen this on any email, but I’m strongly tempted to use it, and hope it would also give me the freedom to dispense with greetings and sign-offs if I feel like it.
What is your view on short emails? Have you ever seen this kind of policy? Would you be offended? Would it make managing your emails easier if people applied it?
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I use short emails for people I already know. For people I don’t know – or people that prefer it – I use a longer one with greeting and sign-offs etc.
I go along with that, Rosie. I know that I’m pretty minimal in most things compared to other people!
My long use of Twitter (since 2008) has also impacted on the length of my communications Judy! Emails, blog posts and other articles are kept short & to the point.
I don’t have time for fluff & flowery filling, but something is still getting in the way of dispensing with greeting and sign-off …
I only do it when I’m continuing a conversation, usually just simple answers to questions. I wouldn’t begin a correspondence without a greeting!
I totally agree. Short, simple and to the point.
One problem I often encounter with long emails is that people simply don’t read them – or they only read the top half or they scan it and pick out a few sentences. As a result I end up repeating myself via email, taking much longer than necessary.
I have heard of some people going so far as to simply put the correspondence in the subject line – which is quite reminiscent of twitter.
I do the subject line thing with people I know well, Kaitlyn. Apparently you should put EOM (end of message) after the text, to indicate that’s all there is and no need to open the email.
I think that needs to become more widely known before I extend the habit!