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Jay Whitenoreply@blogger.com2008-06-16T10:10:22.933-05:00Ten Ways to Turbocharge Your E-Mails</h3><content type="html"><div id="write"><h7 class="write">Written on 6/16/2008 by Steve Osborne, of <a href="http://www.thewritersbag.com/">TheWritersBag.com</a>.</h7></div> <img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_dH0q9hvpVHg/SFaBcYENUuI/AAAAAAAAB1Y/NI_x8OIoToI/s400/email.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212495943224349410" title="email" border="0" />E-mails have long been the gorilla of the communication world; they’re too big to ignore and they don’t always behave properly. Despite the frequency at which most people send emails, many are drab and often a mare's nest of ideas hurriedly typed with no real regard to the reader. The result: If you are lucky to get a response, it could be off-base and completely impertinent to the topic at hand. Worse, you could receive a request asking you to re-explain everything. In this case, you're now re-doing work simply because you rushed through the first one. If you send e-mails (and who doesn’t these days?) doesn’t it make sense to make them more effective? I'd say so. Here are ten things you can do today to begin refining the way you communicate in email. <ol><li>Get to the point Face it, people don’t want to spend a second longer reading your e-mails than they have to. If they want to be entertained, they can open a good book; so don’t beat around the bush. Say what you have to say and no more. You don’t have to follow the same norms when writing e-mails that you follow in conversations and phone calls (i.e., a lot of fluff and fillers, like “Hey, how are doing?” and “What’s new?”) Just say it and leave it at that. </li> <li>Greet them by name People like to see their names in print – even in e-mails. Including the recipients’ names in the opening lines of your e-mails buys you a pound of personalization for an ounce of verbiage. A simple, “Joe, the meeting will be held …” or “Hi Joe. The meeting will be held …” is much more appealing than “The meeting will be held ….” And it costs you only one or two extra words. </li> <li>Put the subject line to work for you The subject line is the headline of your e-mail. It may be the only thing the recipient reads, so make it good. Use it to (1) grab the reader’s attention and pull him or her into the main message, and (2) reveal what the e-mail is about. I once received an e-mail from my son, who was in Peru. The subject line was “A monkey bit my tie.” You can bet that got my attention. </li> <li>Keep the subject line fresh When you reply to e-mails, update the subject line to distinguish your new message from the one you’re replying to. Don’t leave the original subject line on each of a long series of back-and-forth e-mails. Updated subject lines help identify one e-mail in the string from another. </li> <li>Don’t send unnecessary or unwanted e-mails Again, people are busy. Their inboxes tend to fill up quickly. If you send them “junk” e-mails, they’re not going to like you for it. If you keep doing it, they may summarily delete the e-mails you send. They may even relegate you to the spam folder. </li> <li>Know when to cut the thread At the end of a spoken conversation, people typically bat closing comments back and forth, such as, “Good to see you,” “Yeah, good to see you, too,” “Say hi to Bill,” “I’ll do it,” “Take care,” “Bye.” Too many people follow a similar protocol when it comes to e-mails. For example, if you e-mail a co-worker and ask for a report and she sends it to you, it may or may not be appropriate to send her a follow-up e-mail to thank her (depending on the circumstances). However, if she receives your “thank you” e-mail and then sends you another e-mail just to say “You’re welcome,” that’s clearly unnecessary and a waste of time. Know when to cut the thread. </li> <li>Avoid long blocks of text in the main message area Long, uninterrupted text blocks are intimidating. No one wants to read them; they’re too much work. But if you split the same text block up into smaller paragraphs, they are suddenly inviting, even though they represent the exact same amount of text. The empty lines between the smaller paragraphs provide visual relief. </li> <li>Proof it before you send it A quick read-over for errors and typos can eliminate confusion and embarrassment. It would not have been pleasant to have been the one who sent out the e-mail to everyone in his company that said, “We’re happy to announce the birth of Dylan Smith, the sin of Alan and Loretta Smith,” or “The people in accounting have cast off clothing of every kind. They can be seen in the lobby Friday.” If the e-mail is important, read it out loud. Your ear catches subtleties your eye can’t. </li> <li>Send and copy it to the right people Make sure you’re sending the e-mail to the right person. People have been fired or divorced because of misdirected e-mails. For example, one human resources manager for a large company was asked to send a spreadsheet to the CEO showing everyone’s salaries, bonuses and stock options. By mistake he attached the file to a Christmas party invitation that went out to all the employees. It was his last e-mail as a company employee. </li> <li>Don’t make them dig through a long string of messages for a needle in a haystack Don’t write, “Yes, let’s go ahead with the sixth option,” and make the reader search through 10 pages of previous e-mails to find out what the sixth option is. Be kind. It’s easier for you to copy and paste the relevant material into your current message. </li></ol>One last word of caution: Don’t write anything in your e-mails you wouldn’t want to have posted on a bulletin board. Remember, e-mails are not private. Don’t get yourself in trouble. -Steve <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=130a161020d916c31fba380556411555" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=130a161020d916c31fba380556411555" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/DumbLittleMan?a=MB4QLb"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/DumbLittleMan?i=MB4QLb" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=HgAfRi"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=HgAfRi" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=PomKLi"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=PomKLi" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=Gh907i"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=Gh907i" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=N1xMbi"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=N1xMbi" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=rs5XGI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=rs5XGI" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DumbLittleMan/~4/313094125" height="1" width="1"/></content><author><name>Jay White</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author></entry><entry><updated>2008-06-13T15:46:10.136-05:00</updated><title type="text">7 Habits of Losers - Are Your Buddies Keeping You Back?</h3><content type="html"><div id="write"><h7 class="write">Written on 6/13/2008 by Shilpan Patel of <a href="http://www.successsoul.com/blog/">Success Soul</a>.</h7></div> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/airwick/85487169/"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_dH0q9hvpVHg/SFKRyR9f1iI/AAAAAAAAB1Q/95nxKTx5Swg/s400/loser.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211388011821913634" border="0" /></a>A billboard near my house reads, "Tell me the company you keep, and I'll tell you what you are." If you ponder, there's a truth in this statement. A criminal seeks another criminal; a successful man seeks the company of another successful man. I'm as good as the company I keep and I naturally gravitate towards Positivity by seeing half-full side of the glass; I believe in my own destiny. The man who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on the dry land not only drowns himself in the deep ocean but also drowns those who make an attempt to rescue him. As an astute student of human behavior, I always look out for and stay away from a loser. You see, I have to protect my dreams, to protect my Positivity, and certainly protect my winning attitude. Read on and think about who you surround yourself with. Do any of your close friends fit the mold? <blockquote>"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." -Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British politician. </blockquote>1. Sees a problem in every opportunity: A loser is a poor judge of the choices he makes. He sees negativity in Positivity. He sees scares in abundance. He sees a problem in every opportunity. He's a troll looking for failure as an outcome to justify his lack of action. He thinks others are lucky for their achievements to abscond with his inept to achieve anything of significance. 2. Passes the buck: A loser is low on the fuel of self-esteem. He lacks confidence to achieve anything in life. He sees himself as a victim of the cruelty life inflicts on him. He feels that others are to blame for his failures as life is not fair to him. 3. Uses antagonistic phrases: A loser lives the life of antagonism. He uses statements like, "It's not my job," or "I'm not responsible for that" to discern their negativity. 4. Cuts losses quickly: A loser feels pride in making swift moves from a career to another career or from one business to another. He is deft at justifying another dream until a new whim arrives with a new dream. He wants to do lots of things but finds ways to rationalize doing nothing. His confidence in a career or business lasts until he finds another career or a business. 5. Hooked up on cable and lottery drug: A loser squanders time by watching TV for more hours than engaging in meaningful action. He strives for instant gratification by following celebrities and playing lottery with the hope of striking rich overnight. 6. Seeks approval from others: A loser tends to please others in everything he does. He refuses to think and act on his own behalf. He yields to others the ability to create his opinion of himself. 7. He doesn't know what he wants from life: A loser seeks approval from others rather than approval from his inner-self. He sees life from the lenses of instant gratification. His opinion about life swings faster than that of a politician. He truly never knows himself well to find a purpose. A loser is a dream-buster armed with a weapon of negativity to squash your purpose. If you find one, beware. Report to us immediately and either correct their ways, correct the level of credence you place on their words, or distance yourself. 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