Most Common and Annoying Email Habits that Waste Time

Here are the most common email habits and email etiquettes that waste not only yours but your recipient’s valuable time as well. Take a look at them and I am sure, there would be at least one that you may be habituated to.

Incomplete and irrelevant subject in email

This is a fairly common email practice that is not given much importance. Those who have been in professional industries and use email for their day-to-day communication would know the importance of using a relevant subjects in their email. When relevant subject is used, your email gets the right attention it deserves and also acted upon, as it should have been. Incomplete and irrelevant subject lines may lead to delays in getting attention to your email and often it may not be read at all. Some common examples of incomplete subject lines are: ‘Hi’, ‘Hello’, ‘Quote’, ‘Sales Promotion’, ‘Support Staff’, ‘New Project’ etc. Try to elaborate the subject line and incorporate few words that are most relevant to what your email is about. Good examples are: ‘New Project on PHP from ABC Company’, ‘Sales promotion on ABC Product’, ‘Request for adding more resources to support staff’ etc. Also note that some email server may mark your emails as spam mails if the subject line has very few words such as ‘Hello’.

Very Lengthy Emails

Who doesn’t like detailed information? But then, if you use email to pitch in your idea or make some suggestion, using bullet points would be a better choice than writing 2 pages of an email. The recipient of your email will find it very easy to read through the bullet points and understand the essence of your email rather than spending their valuable time reading through 2 pages of your story. You should avoid writing lengthy emails and rather stick to crisp, clear and few lines of text, and if possible use bullet points to pass on your message. Convey your message in as less text as possible. That’s the key to successful communication.

Improper usage of CC and BCC

CC and BCC should be used only when applicable and required. It’s a good idea to put all of your recipient’s email addresses and distribution lists in BCC, but the same doesn’t hold true if you were to make business recommendations to your leadership team.

Not quoting the original email when replying

Some do not or forget to quote the original email when replying to it. This might be an OK practice if the recipients are already aware of the history of previous emails but doesn’t look good when the same email gets forwarded to someone else who doesn’t know anything about the original message. If the email you are replying to is running through a chain of emails, it might be a good idea to remove unwanted conversations but the original email must remain intact for better understanding.

Replying to All

When replying to an email, carefully look at people marked in TO and CC fields of the email. You may be sending a reply to people who should not be receiving your reply or say for example you are replying to an email that was originally sent to a distribution list asking for some information, for example an email sent to everyone in the office asking to know who parked their car in the parking lot # 4. You could unintentionally end up replying to all and send the required information to everyone in the list and it may not be appropriate.

I will post some more email habits that wastes time in near future. Look forward to it.