I took some time over the holiday to clean out my personal email account.  Funny thing is that my business accounts are well organized, have rules to keep the clutter down and me on top of things and a system for filing, follow-up or needs attention now. 

But my personal account was a mess.  The only rule I had was to keep the inbox sorted for my email and that of my husbands.  Yes he also has an account but NEVER checks it; I guess maybe I should start charging him for that service.

As I sorted, deleted, did follow-up and just plain cleaned the account out, I realized this was the time to remind everyone of the email do’s and don’ts to leave we organized folks less stressed.

Email Do’s:

1.       One subject per email please. 

2.       Use descriptive and purposeful subject headings. 

3.       Use your first sentence wisely and state the purpose there.

4.       Keep the message as short as possible.  If you are forwarding then edit the email information to include content only (not everyone else’s email list)

5.       Not everyone thinks like you, you do not need to include all your personal (or even professional) contacts in the “ten people” you need to forward this email to.

6.       The rules of grammar and punctuation still apply when writing an email.

Email Don’ts:

1.       Every email does not need to be responded to right away.  However, you should acknowledge or respond when necessary.

2.       No subject line, refer to number 2 of the do’s.  Bad subjects are even better than no subjects.

3.       Use symbols for emotions or acronyms, i.e. BTW or

4.       Make sure that email is the right tool for the communication and don’t assume about the senders emotional state.

5.       Use copy and reply functions carelessly.  Remember “reply to all” is exactly that and includes blind copies as well.

Please feel free to add to my lists; I always like a good rule or two to keep me organized and efficient.

All the best,

Lee Drozak ~ My Office Assistant