Just realized I used to spend 3 hours on one email draft

Back in my first corporate job 4 years ago in Chicago, I would rewrite every work email like 5 times before sending. I was SO scared of sounding dumb to my manager. Last week I fired off a reply to a VP in under 10 minutes with barely any edits. What changed was I started reading my drafts out loud before hitting send. Has anyone else found a weird trick that cut down their email time?

2 comments

2 Comments

beth_stone13d ago

My friend Jenna used to have this thing where she'd write her emails in the notes app on her phone first, then copy and paste them into Outlook. She said it helped her not overthink because she couldn't see the formatting or who she was sending it to until she was done. She swore it cut her email time in half after like a month of doing it. I tried it once and honestly just ended up with a notes app full of half-finished drafts, ha. But hey, whatever works for people, right?

hugog4313d ago

Got a buddy who swears by writing emails backwards. Like he starts with the last sentence first, then works his way up to the greeting. He says it forces him to get to the point fast because he already knows how it ends. I tried it once and my brain just short-circuited halfway through, ended up with a draft that said "Thanks, let me know if you need anything else" followed by complete gibberish. But he's been doing it for like two years now and swears it's the only way he can keep his emails under five sentences.