Email is a wonderful thing, but like most wonderful things it can be misused. I think email works best when it’s person-to-person and asynchronous. At risk of sounding dangerously pedantic, I’ve documented my little email heuristics here in the hope that we can all get a long a little better.
The Good Stuff
I would love to receive any email that is: from a person, preferably one I know; relevant to me; and delivers its point or points succinctly.
The Bad Stuff
I’d rather not receive an email that: is automated; is addressed to more than five people, especially if my address is in the ‘to:’ field; expects a fast response (see Expectation Setting); is unduly verbose; or contains unnecessary HTML, images or attachments.
Expectation Setting
Response Times
You should expect me to be fairly slow in responding. I know I’m in front of my computer all day, but really, I have better things to be doing than checking my email. If you desperately need my attention and email is the only mode of communication open to you, start the subject field of your message with an exclamation mark (!). Abuse will be penalised by ritual humiliation on this very page, just FYI.
Brevity
I’m going to assume that you too have better things to do than read email. For this reason I will be as brief as possible. Not terse, just brief.
Format
I’m a fan of interleaved posting, which means that, if appropriate, I’ll carve up your incoming email to make the response resemble a little conversation. Maybe I’ll change this habit when Apple Mail does a better job of threading; we’ll see.