If you have ever received an email then you’ll probably agree with me that most emails are full of wasted words. They usually begin with some form of pleasantry. Something asking about your weekend, your evening or your morning.

Most of these casual remarks are empty greetings. Most senders don’t really care about your your weekend, your evening or your morning. These types of greetings have been ingrained into us since childhood and are most likely the result of an eighth grade letter writing lesson. A lesson that was probably taught to us by a kind aging lady with grey hair and glasses.

These pleasantries are redundant in an era where the typical person sends and receives numerous emails in a day. If we all actually responded to these formalities then our email burden would just increase.

The Fix

I’ve been making a real effort these days to not contribute to the excess verbiage. I ignore all the pleasantries and go straight to the point. No greetings. No pleasantries. Nothing to dilute my message.

The problem with this solution is that I now have people asking if I am upset or angry about something. It is interesting how people equate brevity with anger.

Fixing the Fix

I was speaking with a few people about this recently and it seems that the best solution is to add a footnote to the email signature. It’s odd how the solution to being brief without sounding terse is to elongate the email.

Another solution that I have read about online is to add the “Sent from my iPhone” tag to every email. Regardless of where it was sent from. The desired result would be that all email recipients would assume you are being brief since you are using a mobile device.

The solution I am going to go with is sentenc.es. The idea behind sentenc.es is that you respond to email in two, three, four, or five sentences or less. You then add a footnote to your email with a link back to sentenc.es explaining why your email is so brief. So how do you deal with email? Do you buy into the pleasantries or go straight to the point?

__________
Image Credit: cc licensed flickr photo shared by Mzelle Biscotte

• Share

Share This

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

About the author

Matt
I'm Matt and I share how to build an internet presence through internet business, social marketing, lifestyle design and productivity tools. While here, read about me to learn my story or find out how you can hire me.

Related Posts

Become a Gmail Master in About 10 Minutes

Many of us get a lot of email every day and as much as most of us would rather just ignore it, in the end we must learn how to be a Gmail master. One of the keys to staying productive with email is to not spend so much...

Want to Know the Secret of Stress Free Email?

The average person recieves about 75 emails a day and spends 49 minutes managing those emails. Now, the problem is that we don't get all those email all at the same time. We receive them spread throughout the day and we get them...

Future Proof Email Address

I can hear it already. The first words that came out of your mouth is that nothing is future proof. If you have ever bought a piece of electronic gadgetry then you'll know all about this. However, there are certain safeguards...

4 Comments for Email Pleasantries Are Time Wasters

Travis Hulsey 崔惟思

I find that the fundamental problem is simply that people don't *read* everything in an e-mail anymore. I can't send any kind of request to people these days without using bullet points, and even *then* things get completely ignored.

I'm curious to know later on how many people *still* reply to you asking if you're upset because they never clicked the sentenc.es link for an explanation.

- Sent from my iPhone

Reply

Matt Hooper

I am guessing people don't read full emails these days because they are skimming through the sludge but when you skim you miss parts.

Sometimes numbered lists are even better since recipients are more likely to respond to a series of numbers and not skip them. This isn't always true either but I find it helps.

——————————————–
Q: Why is this four sentences or less?
A: http://four.sentenc.es

Reply

graphgetsen

Pleasantries are time-wasters whenever the interest is feigned.

Email is more a tool nowadays, and can afford to be treated as such.
The medium is the mess age.

I'm also an advocate of email brevity, but do try and bracket my four sentences with a warm salutation and signature.

Reply

Matt Hooper

I still address and sign my emails like I have always done but I try to keep the stuff in between as brief as possible.

Reply