I often bang on about my love (cough) of emails in the workplace, but there really is no escape from them. They are always going to be there.
Whilst face to face should always be your first choice of communication and telephone your second, sometimes these aren’t possible, so we need to practise the art of first-class emailing.
Because volumes are ever increasing and the expectation of response time reducing, we’ve gotten lazy. We rush and don’t stop to ensure that we are articulating ourselves clearly and in the most effective way.
Words are magnificent things, but they are often wasted, and critical messages can be lost amongst the over typing and cover-your-arse language people use in a corporate environment.
[Tweet “Work emails should be brief, engaging and unambiguous.”]
We should consider the impact we want and thoughtfully choose our words accordingly.
To help with this, I’ve compiled a list of 101 high impact power words, broken down into 4 common categories for work emails.
1. You need someone to do something for you:
2. You are making a pitch / selling something:
3. You need to raise an issue:
4. You want to share information
Pay more attention to your emailing today. Make a conscious effort to not be boring, unclear or too wordy in your emails. Put this list to use. Choose your words deliberately, cut out the guff, and spread good practise.
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Please share in the comments the words I missed, I’m sure there’s plenty 🙂