What Every Smart Writer Knows About Writing Emails

Are you sitting in a comfortable position? Are you feeling relaxed? Because what you are about to hear will completely revolutionize the way you communicate.

FACT: reading long emails sucks.

FACT: reading long emails with lots of different font sizes, colors, styles and shapes sucks even worse.

FACT: most people click delete the minute someone sends an email that’s designed like what was just described.

FACT: the reason people are answering you, “ooops, no, I didn’t.” whenever you ask them if they read your email is because IT SUCKS!

Stop writing terrible emails NOW by following a very simple step.

Smart writers know that effective emails contain one idea. One point.

Smart writers know that the chances of getting your email read quadruple if you keep your emails short, sweet, and to the point!

Smart writers know that getting to the point should be done fast.

Smart writers know that it is just as easy to write five short emails under five different subject headings as it is to write one email that contains five points.

Why is this so? Because it’s smart, that’s why. And because today’s email reader in nearly ALL contexts—albeit the old granny sitting reading forwards and letters from grandchildren—have too much to do. Concentrating on the minute details and points made in a massive splattering of text is too much for a readers info/stress-stuffed brain to handle. Smart writers know this, and so write to the needs of their readers.

Do you want your emails to be read? Do you want to be a smart emailist?

Then start shortening them up. Stop being stylistic. Get to the point! Be polite, but get to the point. ...or else.

Some Really Great Reasons To Write That First Draft

Blogs are great. For some people they are a place to write serious literature. For others, they’re a place to write babbling unfocused turd-like thoughts. For a few, they’re a place to report on findings and cool information. For folks like me, they’re a great place to get started. For we all know that getting started is 8/9ths the battle.

Write the damned first draft, I say. Get it going. Just do it. Stop procrastinating. Write everything as though it’s a first draft.

That last sentence makes good sense. In college, how many of us wrote those final papers in no way like what was suggested? How many of you wrote that final 12 page tome the night before it was due? How many papers did you hand in that were lucky if they at least had been spell checked? How many of you never even bothered to read what you had written before handing it in? Admit it! There had to have been at least a few papers where you didn’t do the best you could have done? There had to have been at least one or two essays where you didn’t take the time to write, rewrite, get someone to check it for you—you know, write your paper “the right way”?

If you didn’t turn in a less than perfectly prepared paper at least once in your college career, I highly recommend going back to school. Clearly you didn’t do college like you were supposed to.

…of course, this is coming from a guy whose blogging for free rather than being paid to write. You might think twice about the credibility of this writer.

Wow…this introduction is taking a really long time. What’s my point? My point is that you really should just start writing. Write the first draft! And do it now. Write it and publish it. If you don’t, you’ll miss out on some really good benefits.

One, not writing your first draft will result in not writing a damn thing at all. Not writing your first draft, shitty or great, will result in your sitting in front of the television feeling like crap about yourself. Not writing your first draft leads you to poor self-esteem. It leads you to crappy self-justifying bullcrap that is supposed to cover over the fact that you just didn’t do the only thing that will get you started….writing the first draft.

Not writing that first draft enables you to never have anything to rewrite and make better. Not writing it ensures that you’ll be without product. There’ll be nothing to make awesome and better. There’ll be nothing for you to develop and play with. Don’t you realize that revision is where the beauty comes? Revision is the shit! It’s awesome. Remember that when you’re writing your shitty first draft. Because no matter what you write, you’re going to eventually turn it into something else, something great, something fantastic. And doing that is the best damned part of writing. So, if you’re not writing your first draft, you’re missing out on the process of fixing what can never be perfect the first time. You’re just being a fool.

Enough said. Write the damn first draft! Stop stalling, and get it down. Tomorrow is another day. Decide, take action, write, and give someone something on paper. Remember it’s not about you whatever you say, it’s about the people you’re helping with your words. So tell the damn story, write the damn essay, finish the damn blog. Just do it! Just write the damn first draft!

For a key to successful communication is the willingness to start somewhere.