Email Etiquette

The guide to writing emails to your boss/important people:

(1) Try to put everything he or she needs to know in the subject line. Odds are they have no intention to open the email anyways. If you put key words of phrases in the subject, they get your thesis without having to click "open" on their cellphones. (Make sure it is not a "wordy" subject or it will cut off if opened on a cellphone)  Let's be honest. Odds are he or she wont even read the subject - they might just disregard it - the subject should then be searchable so that a few weeks or months from now when he (we are just going to use the pronoun "he" from now on to cut down on unnecessary typing) asks you if you sent that email, you can say "oh yes, check the email sent on 10/4 titled *insert your title here*".

(2) Use bullet points. Or numbers. You odds are greatly increased of getting a read if you have bullet points. No "unnecessary" words in this either.  Just a quick, super short, to the point summary. (don't take this post to be the perfect example of course). Don't get me wrong, when I have been told to "write a detailed email describing the situation", I have written a detailed email that would make your eyes roll to the back of your head half way through reading it, That can't be good for anyone's yearly optometrist visit,

(3) Bold. If you are lucky enough for him to open the email, you want the bolded words to smack him in the face. He should be able to understand the entire email by simply skimming the bold words. That way, if he "skims your email" you are helping him to skim the part you really want for him to read.

(4) Don't use long words. Write as though you are writing to a small child (with all due respect). He isn't going to use a dictionary to look up presumptuous words. (such as presumptuous). You don't come off as "more intelligent" if you used your thesaurus to write a quick work email.

(5) If there is additional information, put it in the attachment. Then you can say "attached, for additional information, is the *insert name of document*" Highlight the document (you can do that in pdf or excel or word) with the important key figures mentioned in your email. IF for some unknown reason he wants to actually read your email to put him to sleep at night AND opens the attachment, you are good to go.

(6) Make sure your document is client ready. Okay, we are not perfect. Today, I forgot to spell check an excel document and there was a small, hidden, completely irrelevant misspelled word. After a couple years of constant spell check and getting irritated with others for not using the little "check mark" function on all microsoft product, I forgot. AND got called out in an email about it - making my boss look bad. Easy to do - sucks when you don't.

(7) Make sure all attachments are print ready, and the little box in the excel document is at A1. Don't make it any more confusing than necessary or he might close it with all of the confusion of starting out on cell F45. You might have one of those old-school bosses that print everything - welcome to 2012 bossman,

(8) The email should be "client ready". If you can adequately write a professional and quick email, your boss can simply forward on the message to the appropriate party, (also eliminating the need for him to read it all together, ideal)

(9) Never BCC your boss. He wont feel special and your odds of him reading it are slim to none, Plus, who BCCs anyways? You shady bastard.(That being said, I do appreciate being BCCed on the "I'm quitting the firm" emails. That way I don't have to scroll through all the people you've ever passed in the hall after your 2-5 years with the firm.)

(10) Don't over use the "!" Urgent. You are going to be the "boy who called wolf". What is REALLY IMPORTANT to you, might be not such a big deal compared to the rest of his day.
Don't use Urgent unless one of the following has occurred:

• Someone is bleeding (actually, then you should call the doctor, or give them a bandaid depending on how serious the cut)
• There is an extreme emergency (but maybe you should be calling him at that point?)
• Something requires immediate action (but then you could just write "Immediate Action Required" In the subject line so he knows there is an action item associated with the whole mess)

Good Luck and Happy Writing.

The 30 minute rule

I am pretty sure I can do just about anything for 30 minutes.

But let’s be honest. If it doesn’t involve shoe shopping or lunch with friends and isn’t something that I WANT to be doing, I am going to put it off. Instead of working, I can drift into the world of online shopping. Instead of folding laundry, I can drift into the latest episode of Real Housewives (or maybe even a repeat.) I would find it hard to imagine that this is just me.

But I can do anything for 30 minutes. So go with that theory. It is a Sunday afternoon. I want to meet up with friends/shop/nap/fill in with lazy Sunday activities. I also have that laundry on my bed that I need to fold. 30 minutes. “I am going to just spend 30 minutes FOCUSING on this one task”. I saw whatever isn’t done in 30 minutes can wait. 80% of the time (rough estimate) the laundry is done). If I get into the trend of working out for an hour or more I can find it hard to drag myself to the gym (What a commitment!) But thinking about getting on a machine for 30 minutes? Easy. I can find 30 minutes in my day.

Same thing goes with work. The internet simultaneously increased and decreased productivity in the work place. (I am not sure how it netted out – but probably negative overall) It increased by opening communication throughout cities and states and the world. Transfer information. And obtain information. Easy to search. Easy to access information. Oh, but the time wasted by employees talking to one another. Or online shopping for shoes (wow, maybe I need to seek help?) Here is my challenge. Turn off the internet. Or gmail. Or chat session. And focus of work for 30 minutes straight. There is something to be said about not multi-tasking 100% of your day. This might sound old-school, but it is amazing what you can accomplish with 100% of your attention. Those 30 minutes can equal hours of multi-tasked work.

A modern girl simply needs more time. But maybe we just simply need to use our time more efficiently. 

Resolutions (Part 2): Learn one from Santa

In honor of Christmas just ending, we should take one from Santa. Maybe he had the right idea all along.

"Making a list, and checking it twice".

If Santa didn't have a list, he would forget which children were the good ones and which presents everyone wanted. Same thing goes with resolutions.

Lets take an verbal contract. In Business Law in college, we learned that verbal contracts hold just as much weight as written contracts (As long as there is a meeting of the minds, mutual consideration, offer and acceptance, performance or deliver, good faith...) Why then do we have written contracts? Besides the proof, there is also something that makes a written contract and signing your name on a dotted more legit. This year? All my resolutions will be written down. (Yours should be too!)

Oh, the implications of writing down a list of resolutions. Suddenly, it seems more meaningful if the goals are written on a piece of paper or better yet, in a list that can be crossed off. Write down your goals. Post the list somewhere that you have to look everyday. How can you ignore that?