YSK these e-mail tips (crosspost)

I don't know about you, but I really struggle with emails. These sentences were really helpful!

You Should Know @lemmy.world

YSK these e-mail tips

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35 comments

Always happy to help!
No I'm not .
Could you do (time)?
I will never be able to pick a time :-
It'd be easier to discuss in person
NOOOOPE
(Being assertive)
Not a chance :'D
This stuff is all bad for me 😅
- Let me guess... ADHD and social anxiety?
  
  Oh, very social anxiety 🙀Probably some 'the spectrum' funs too.
  ... I can barely leave my bedroom . hides under pillow

I prefer my favorite one: "as per my previous email"
- Yeah the “as” is totally unnecessary.
- Business speak for "removed, can you fucking read?"

Bit of a tangent, not just emails, not just professionaly, but one thing I find saves me a lot of stress is that I ask less unnecessary questions.
Not: Would you like to join me / go with me and do x? You can't go on day x? What about day y?
Instead: I'm going to do X at date, location, time. If you want you can join me, let me know.
Not: Can you do X?
Instead: I would like you to do X.
Not: When will it be ready?
Instead: I'm assuming it'll be ready by X. Let me know if this is correct.
Not: What's the deadline?
Instead: I can have this done by X. Let me know if this is acceptable.
TLDR: don't ask people permission or assume they won't be ok with what you want to do. Tell them what you're doing/planning/expecting, offer them the opportunity to help/join/give input.
Bonus: makes you come across as less uncertain and saves a lot of back and forth.
- I've found that some people don't respond if you ask for confirmation "will that be finished by tomorrow?". Asking in the negative allows for you to assume everything is fine unless they respond "the due date is tomorrow, please let me know if you need help to finish that on time".
  Perhaps it's less polite, but if you're dealing with people who rarely reply, it puts the burden on them and doesn't leave you waiting for their reply.
  
  Good catch. Yeah. "I'm assuming X. Let me know if this is not the case."
- I love this, it's very assertive and just "live your fucking life"-ful.

This is great! I found this sorting by New and these tips are applicable for anyone (not only those suffering from ADHD) to have a more authoritative and confident tone to your digital communications.
- Definitely agree. I posted it to YSK to reach more people.

What. Utter. Bullshit. Next you gonna tell people to post "Please do the needful"?

Jesus, I fit like half of those. Some of those are gonne hard to get rid of...
- Remember to only take and apply what serves you. There's no need to re-work your whole style if it's already working.

Could you elaborate on how ADHD affects writing e-mails, if you do not mind? I expected writing e-mails would be more comfortable for someone with ADHD because they can take their time with the e-mail. But then again, the time is limited and maybe this freedom to write in your own time means that you write a single e-mail way too long, rewriting it, … I do not know much about it. I would welcome some insights on the topic.
Nevertheless, I like some of these suggestions very much. I might try and see if I can improve some phrases in my e-mails with these as well.
- One of the major reasons this applies to ADHD for me is the fact that I can fall behind on projects and emails and then feel the need to over-apologize and over-extend myself to fix the problem. Several of these tips address it. It's more about boundaries than emails per se, if that makes sense.... I mean, let me know if you have any questions :)
  
  It makes perfect sense. Thank you for sharing. I can relate a bit with my own problems, so I know what you are talking about and can extrapolate further if I do not. Have you managed to create some mechanisms how to mitigate these issues? Something like forcing yourself to set hard limits on how much time you can allocate to any project in addition to the normal amount of time you would allocate for the task, limiting how many times you can use 'sorry' in a single e-mail, etc.?
  This is an interesting and enlightening discussion under this post. I learned new things. For that, I am grateful.
- I can't speak for everyone, but the issues I have relate to writing way too much information. Sometimes if I get in the zone I write beautiful emails, but most of the time it is a rough experience, full of deleting and rewriting. This happens when the response can be easily condensed into a couple sentences. Anyway, that's just my experience.
  
  I have the same problem. I started using AI to rewrite my emails to make them more concise and to avoid long-winded responses.
  
  I see. That can be exhausting, I imagine. Thank you for sharing.

I can’t wait to forget all of these.

35 comments