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Comment by hnrodey | Hacker News Reader

Rules for good emails

1. Keep the message as short as necessary but no shorter.

2. Put the most important information at the top of the message.

3. If it email is for an ask, call out from who you need the response and put it at the top of the message.

4. If you need to send a long email with many details, put the most important information at the top (ie. what the reader needs to know) and then fill in the body with details he/she can choose to indulge.

Example

Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?

Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.

Lemme know.

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>>Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?

>>Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.

>>Lemme know.

Yes

> Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?

Should be the call to action/last sentence instead of "Lemme know" (I read that as passive-aggressively asking for a follow up?

> because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.

Too many words. Saying that vendor ABC is completing a web service won't affect your CTA. Also, that last sentence is implied.

Here is how I would send it:

SUBJECT: Bug XYZ blocking sprint. Help?

BODY:

Hey, Jane. I'm assigned to bug XYZ. We're held up waiting for something from Vendor ABC; this might make us blow our sprint. Can you help me re-prioritize this?

Now, if Jane is one that prefers having everything upfront and is diligent about getting to her emails, then a longer, more detailed message makes sense. However, I usually send my emails with the intent of illiciting a follow-up response; too much information == TL;DR

"lemme know" isn't passive-agressive, it's a clear request. you've got to sandwich the information you are providing inbetween two copies of the request:

- start with the request, so the recipient knows why they are reading the main content of the email before they start

- give them all the information that you can to help them respond

- and then end with the request again so it's clear what you actually need and they don't have to scroll back up to read it.

the request shouldn't be more than a sentence, so it's not significantly adding to the length to repeat it.

don't be shy about asking for a response - the whole point of an email should be to get a response, and being clear about what you need in the response is just helping your recipient. And if you don't need a response, be clear about that too - but if you're sending email that doesn't require a response, reconsider whether you need to be sending the email.

It's not a (sufficiently) clear request because it doesn't contain your recommendation. If you're asking them to provide their opinion, provide yours as well.

That e-mail should have been written in a style where "yes" could be a sufficient answer to the "lemme know" if the supervisor agrees, and currently it's not.

>Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?

>Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.

>Lemme know.

Pss, amateur. That's way too many words.

Hi Jane,

should I keep fixing bug XYZ or focus on feature 123? Vendor ABC is taking longer than we thought to fix their stuff.

Bill

And sometimes add a smiley so they know you're not made of circuits yourself too.

Use this as an opportunity to 'manage up'. Frame your email to recommend the decision you'd make. In the example below, you know what I would do with no executive decision, and the response I do get can be a one word yes/no reply.

Jane, should I keep fixing bug XYZ? Im blocked by Vendor ABC.

I can work on Feature 123.

I feel like this only works if you already have a good manager. A bad one will just say 'both' and then keep complaining that they aren't both done.

Better to ask for forgiveness than permission:

Hi Jane,

I'm focusing on feature 123 since XYZ is blocked by ABC.

-A

even better:

    Jane, I'm focusing on feature 123 since XYZ is blocked by ABC.

or since email already has the address header:

    TO: Jane Janeson <jane.janeson@initech.com>
    SUBJECT: APPROVE: I'm focusing on feature 123 since XYZ is blocked by ABC. EOM

Even Worf doesn't go that far https://twitter.com/WorfEmail

Nailed it.

> And sometimes add a smiley so they know you're not made of circuits yourself too.

That's where I always forget to do :) :( :)

We usually have a lot of CC's. So we use the @ system.

Eg. @stacey - can you get me the numbers on whatever?

I just bold the names, which has a similar effect.

Not as much of a problem today given the richness of mobile devices and rich text formatting but manipulating fonts (bold, italic, etc) to draw attention was problematic because people/devices would drop down to plain text formatting so the recipient does not get what the sender thinks they will see.

I try to avoid any formatting beyond ascii. It just makes life harder when people are trying to cut and paste.

I use *s surrounding, just like here. Outlook automatically bolds it, but they're still present for unformatted views.

I think you missed a key point in your example which you demonstrated but didn’t explain. The last sentence of the email should be an action for the reader. Don’t make them scroll back up.

I'm abominable with conclusions in emails and personally feel like they are a waste (majority of the time). I know it's something I should probably be better at, but often I just finish my thought(s) and hit send.

This is too often the case. However, what it does is leaves the ask unasked. When a specific ask isn't made, with everyone's high workloads, it allows everyone just to shrug and say "Okay, not my problem." If you allow someone to interpret that nothing was actually asked of them, that's exactly how it will be interpreted more often than you would like.

If you need someone to take up the cause you have identified, you need to specifically ask them so they have to say "No, I'm not going to do that" if they're not going to pick it up. This is as much for their benefit as yours. When someone must say "Yes, I will do that" or "No, I will not do that" it helps them draw a black and white line around what they are willing or not willing to take on as part of their job. In a world where boundaries are grey, life itself is grey, it's hard to have a feeling of completion in anything. When you have no sense of completion, it leaves you feeling like you never really accomplish anything and being pushed with the current, not in charge of your own destiny.

Help people to say "Yes, that is mine" and "No, that is not mine" it is not only helpful for you to know who is in charge of something, it is helpful for them as well. It will help them to say "Actually, I've got too much on my plate already, I don't have any more capacity to take on any more just now. It would be really helpful if you could ask someone else to take this on."

For #1, what I have found works best is to nix the huge amount of text you'd otherwise write in the email and put it in a link. A document maybe, or better yet a beautiful portal that works on desktop and mobile.

That way the email is short AND the link can be reshared!

You lose the ability to search though. And then you've to worry about whether document was on Dropbox, Google Drive or just a link somewhere.

I had a problem where we did exactly that, "please read the document at this link because <list of reasons>". Check the logs, person had not even clicked on it. Asked them about why they had not read the document mentioned in email, and proceeded to show their phone's email app, said "Yes, I read it, see here, the message is marked read in my email."

That doesn't work when your recipients are frequent business travellers who have only intermittent Internet connectivity and the link is behind a corporate firewall. For those people I usually include the document as an attachment. Not ideal but it keeps the discussion moving.

That's a terrific idea, if that kind of CMS-ish system is available to you or within your organization. Unfortunately I've never been exposed to or have much experience with something like that : (

> CMS-ish system

That's Google Docs or Office 365.

Office 365 is the closest I've experienced. I actually kinda like it. My biggest use-case is wider spread documentation that is inappropriate to distribute as an attachment.

I dunno, dude, I'm kinda looking the two-word reply style in the article. My suggested Verizon of the message here would be

"Hey Jane; let's 1:1."

Or, if you think face to face communication is a waste of time,

"Hey Jane; pick one for Friday: feature 123 or bug xyz?"

Why "Hey Jane" at all. Can be cut

Are we playing code golf with email?

TO: Jane

SUBJECT: Bug XYZ blocked. Feature ABC?

BODY:

Jane,

Vendor ABC is blocking Bug XYZ. This gates Feature 123.

How do we prioritize?

Subject: Reprioritization

XYZ is blocked by Vendor ABC. Feature 123 is affected.

Also, for #3, put in the when you need a response by so people know the urgency.

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