Email Time Waste (7 Obvious Things)

These are obvious notes about email time waste, but people often forget!

1. If it takes you 10 minutes to proofread an email, it will take them 10 minutes to read it. Most people don't like getting 10 minute emails.  I've gotten 30-minute emails, not because they are long (sometimes they are), but they are dense and hard to follow.
2. Do you want people to read your email? Great! It takes them time. Did you know that?
3. If you send 100 people in your org a "quick note," and you actually want them to read it, it will take them 2 minutes. Each. And 2 minutes times 100 is 200 minutes. If your org's average wage is $30/hr, this was just a $100 email to acknowledge Bill's successful sale to a new client. (Hint: Bill would probably rather get a $50 bill.)
1. It's actually slightly worse. If you pay a person $30/hr and make $30 in net profit, that's a losing business (makes no money). So, hopefully, overall, you pay your employees X and make more than X. So, it's not just the loss of $30/hr. You're paying them, and you're losing the sale/productivity.
4. People have learned to ignore emails. If you write a lot of useless emails, they will learn to ignore yours. It's not mean; they are just adapting to the repeated signal that you waste their time. (Do you pick up every call from unknown numbers? Have you heard of telemarketers?)
5. If you're not sure if you write good emails, try this: Read an email you wrote from a year ago. Read a few. Were they good? Would you ignore them now?
6. Sometimes you need to transmit a lot of information in email. That's okay. Just make it clear. "You need this information for X. Here you go!" Don't make them guess. It should be obvious.
7. So and so says blah blah blah about emails on LifeHacker. Fuck them. Just use "common sense". I.e., think for a few seconds, would I want to get this email? Do unto others as they would do unto you. This is the Email Golden Rule, baby.