A Checklist for Every E-mail You Send

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St. Adalbert Vacation Bible School

Hi,

We need some of your drama students to help with roles we need for our Ancient Rome theme for this year. We have gotten NO response from students or other peaople whe have been asked to help so we thought that college students would really help us out this year. We need people for acting parts and to help with props. If you can help please let me know as soon as possible. Our program is June 22-26, 2009 from 9:00-11:35am. If we don't get help from you then we can't have a program this year. Please let me know either way Soon.

Thank You very much.

Carole Wozney of OH @ May 13, 2009 01:24:39 AM

phone or mail

Would you mention your content by mail or phone, or even in person? Well then, why clutter someone's e-mail, or even waste their time? The Obama post was rather unnecessary.

Think before you click or hit send. Some people have a real life.

Don of PA @ May 08, 2009 19:05:40 PM

Nice site

Nice article

arhiderrr of DE @ Feb 28, 2009 10:24:49 AM

people people people

you are all in a great community

we now have obama for our president

john reisbeck of CA @ Nov 07, 2008 15:57:00 PM

email

Would you want it posted on a bulletin board? If not, delete it.

wahopin of AZ @ Aug 07, 2008 11:32:10 AM

Check personal email at home

I agree that you should never check personal email on the company computer. Check your email at home or go to the library. The company is paying you to work, not surf the net or play around emailing all day long.

Darcetha of MO @ Aug 07, 2008 11:31:18 AM

Answer to Question from Jilly of TX

Yes, they can and will use your Yahoo account against you. It's their computer, their server, their dime. Nothing is yours or kept private once you walk through those doors. I was fired myself for surfing the web and using company email for non company use. I learned the hard way, just don't do it!

Jennifer of IN @ Aug 07, 2008 09:35:07 AM

Question?

What if I keep things above board on my work email, but I have a personal yahoo address where I enter personal things. Can my work monitor those emails?

Jilly of TX @ Aug 07, 2008 08:18:28 AM

Bigstring

Stupid. If you are concerend why not just use a service from Bigstring that gives you control over your e mail after it was sent. bigstring.com

M of NY @ Aug 07, 2008 07:52:36 AM

Number 35 is, to me, the most critical. I get enough email that it's just impossible to deal with messages with useless subjects. And *blank* subject lines are just directed straight to the spam folder.

Even for casual, personal correspondence, the subject line is important.

Make the subject line reflect what the message is about. If you're sending a note describing your recent trip to Napa Valley, use something like "The Napa trip", not "Hi", nor "I'm back!" And it's *never* useful to use a subject like "From Bill". Avoid "Tuesday" for a message sent on Tuesday; "Tuesday" is a perfectly good subject for a message sent on Sunday *about* Tuesday (though "Plans for Tuesday" might be better). For business correspondence, this is especially important. Don't use "a question", but prefer "a question about Firefox on a Mac". Be specific without making the subject too long.

When you're replying to a message, don't gratuitously change the subject, since the recipient will probably be using the subject line to keep the messages together (threading). By the same token, *do* change the subject on a reply when the discussion really *has* shifted to another topic. "Re: Notes on Tuesday's meeting" isn't a useful subject when you've moved on to discussion of the August symposium.

Avoid putting wildly different things in the same message, particularly in business correspondence. It sometimes makes sense to do that, but think about it. Mostly, two very different topics are better sent in two messages. Relax this a bit with personal correspondence, but still... think about putting key bits ("directions to the party") in their own, separate messages, so they're easy to find and file away.

Remember that attachments usually stay with the message, so avoid putting some important bit that the recipient will likely want to save... in a message that has 5 MB of photos from the dog show.

And...

Don't forward "jokes" and "inspirational" messages. Just don't. You can bet that most of your recipients will have already gotten 17 copies, and most of the ones who haven't won't appreciate it anyway. I always enjoy something that someone decided to send *me*, because it seems to fit *my* taste. I never want something that you blasted to everyone in your address book.

Barry Leiba of NY @ Jun 08, 2008 13:14:40 PM

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