Email, Lean and Concise

We've had a few posts over the last year discussing how to minimize email, improve the processing of email, and the like.  But how about reducing the length of emails themselves?

I happen to be among the most verbose of email writers.  When I get riled up, associates at my company have to deal with my very (very) lengthy missives.  Sometimes I'll even throw a hidden required action into the last paragraph to see if people read the whole thing.  I can pontificate in very flowery language for page after page after page.  After all, isn't writing an art?

Perhaps the art is in the finesse, the brevity.  Last week Lifehack had a great post on Mastering the short email.

Good writers know that lean, vibrant language is almost always preferable to verbose, rambling writing. There is virtually no writing in the world so good that it can’t be made better by making it shorter. There are exceptions, of course – a contract needs to cover every possible potentiality, as does the text of an international treaty, but these documents are not really meant to be read, they’re meant to be enacted.

Writing well is one key – good prose is engaging and persuasive, no matter what the aim. And writing concisely is a big part of writing well. But writing concisely offers benefits on its own – the short email, particularly the email whose contents fit into the preview pane without any scrolling, has a much higher chance of gaining a reader’s attention than one that starts off with three pages about trivia.

Ok, but how do those of us who love to write, and write, implement "lean email writing?"

This is what Mike Davidson figured out – if his recipients were half as slammed as he was, he figured they could use some relief from long-winded emails that ramble on and on in the guise of pleasantries. Instead, he committed himself to writing emails that were five sentences or less, every single time. To explain his decision, and to encourage others to follow suit, he created the site five.sentenc.es, which explains:

• The Problem: E-mail takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow for those who receive a lot of it.
• The Solution: Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.

Five sentences.  The Lifehack post goes on to give some examples.  Guy Kawasaki also discussed this method back in 2006.  Looks hard, but a worthy challenge.

Sorry, I won't be applying the same philosophy to my blog posts.  I need a release somewhere, especially if I shorten my emails.

Comments

[Eric Wade]

Another issue that 'lean emails' will solve: the email with nine issues in it, that once a few of them are answered it is old news. How about one main course per email?

[Dan Markovitz]

Amen to Eric's point. (And kudos to you, Kevin, for aspiring to brevity.) One subject per email makes good sense, and not just because some topics get lost in the shuffle. If you're an email filer (as so many people are), multiple topics makes it nearly impossible to file: after all, what folder do you use?

[Ralph Bernstein]

My background is in journalism. Having worked as an editor, I believe in making things concise.
A few thoughts:
1. Before hitting the send button, ask yourself: What would be the effect of not sending this email? If the answer is nothing, it is probably not worth sending.
2. For practice, when you have written something, go back over it and cut its length by one-third. The number is arbitrary, but the exercise can teach a lot.
3. Regularly read The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, two of the most tightly edited newspapers in the country.

[Anne Newell]

There used to be a rule of thumb:
1)Use memos (e-mail) when you need to CYA
2)Pick up the phone if issues can't be resolved with one response cycle
2a)Go talk to the person if you need buy-in and quick resolution (option: summarize the decision and action items in an e-mail)
3)Call a (brief) meeting if more than two people are involved in the issue's resolution (option: follow up with an e-mail summary of the decision and actions)
And we could add: start a blog when you have a lot on your mind.

[Eric Wade]

More reasons to avoid lengthy emails: iPhone; PocketPC; Blackberry; Treo, etc. Many of us are using email devices that are less like word processors and more like text message services. Especially those who are aiming for Four Hour Work Weeks.