E-mails Should Not be Manifestos

E-mail is not the venue for rambling random thoughts, your latest tirade or manifesto about whatever your brain sparks at the moment -- save that for your Blog. Long e-mails, especially those without paragraph breaks every several sentences don't get read. They get scanned. I've even caught myself scanning instead of reading when I am pressed for time.

That is why bullet points are your friends. Visually they don't look like too much to tackle and subconsciously the recipient thinks they can acquire your points in little tid-bits so they are more likely to read your e-mail in its entirety.

=> Use brief and succinct bullet points when covering numerous thoughts or issues so they have a better chance to be absorbed and applied/replied to.

=> No need to code HTML bullet points use => or * to separate your points.

=> If you find a topic requires more coverage or priority, have that topic be in its own e-mail so that it is not lost amongst the numerous other issues.

=> If you find that your topic is very detailed, create a document in PDF and send that along as an attachment. This gives the other side the ability to review that topic when they have time and to file/print it for later review.

Here again, you need to think of the best approach to ensure the other side reads, reviews and absorbs your information -- especially if their reply is required. Forget about all the blah, blah, blah you feel you need to get across and pair your e-mails down to only clear and concise points.