Waaaay back in 2015 folks received 121 emails per day. That’s about 1 email every four minutes. Sure, some of these are junk, or calendar invites, or cold calls from recruiting/sales reps/etc… but you still have to process them, even if only for a moment.  There’s a lot of great tips out there on how to improve how to handle this deluge, but instead lets take a moment to contemplate how we can help NOT contribute to this insanity.

There’s a number of things we can do as email / communication senders that will help those poor, drowning recipients find our email and understand the message we’re sending in that torrent of other stuff. Applying these tricks does take a bit of time and thought to get right, but I find the small investment is more than worth it to help ensure my message is properly understood.

Include a too long; didn’t read (tl;dr)

The tl;dr goes back to early 2000’s, and was actually accepted as a word by Miriam Webster back in 2018 (How to geek has a pretty good breakdown).  Basically you put a few bullet points synopsis of your message before the message itself (similar to a BLUF or exec briefing) so folks who are in a hurry can just read a few lines and be done.  Under that, you write a long form version of your message.

I’ve used this trick for a number of years, and constantly have folks tell me how much they appreciate it (especially executives).  This response makes sense… when you’re digging through 120+ emails a day, on top of your actual job, having something make it easier to determine what’s useful vs. what isn’t is incredibly useful.

A very brief example is below, but notice how the tl;dr says all the important stuff in only 2 lines.  If someone wants more info, they can keep reading, but the tl;dr saves a LOT of time.

Tl;dr

• Database will be offline from 2-2:15 for updates

• Email help@example.com if you see any issues

Hello team,

Just a reminder that we will be taking the database offline tomorrow around 2 pm to perform maintenance on the indexing functions.  We don’t expect this take more than 15 minutes, but please reach out to use at help@example.com if you notice anything out of sorts or have other questions.

[FYI] or [Action Requested] Subject Lines

Another trick I’ve started using is to add either [FYI] or [Action Requested] to the subject line of emails.  For example:

“Database Update - 2 pm”

Might be changes to 

“[FYI] Database Update - 2pm”

The [FYI] signals to everyone that this is just an information update, and that they don’t necessarily need to do anything.  Similarly, adding “[Action Requested]” at the start clearly signals to the recipients that they need to do something.  This trick helps the recipient more easily scan through their inbox for things that need their attention (or can safely be ignored).

CC Line = FYI Only

The last trick I’ll share is one that takes a bit more coordination amongst the team, but can also help folks figure out what they need to do.  It takes effort because EVERYONE involved needs to remember that folks on the “CC” line of emails are there only to keep them informed.  The folks on the “TO” line are there because they need to take action.  

The big advantage here is it clearly calls out to everyone who needs to do something (e.g. the entire “TO” line), while also ensuring the folks who should be informed are (the “CC” line).  This runs into trouble when someone forgets to put the appropriate folks on the appropriate line…. Things quickly get out of hand if you forget to add a critical person to the “TO” line and no one catches it.