How do you feel when you get an email with a massive body of text in it? Do you feel excited? Are you chomping at the bit? Probably not. I, for one, tend to groan inwardly before skim reading it for the important bit. Of course, there are always exceptions but that is generally how it goes.
Like it or not, we humans seem to be developing a shorter and shorter attention span and we want information in smaller and smaller bites. Sending war and peace emails is not going to fit in with the way we consume information today. In fact, it can outright irritate people. It certainly irritates me!
There is usually a way to convey the same message with less words. You’ll know what I’m talking about if you have ever written something and then tried to refine it due to a word number restriction (like a tweet). It’s hard at first, but once you have finished chipping away you are left with a very concise and hard hitting message. I’m certainly not saying you should write a long email and then try and reduce the number of words. We don’t have time for that. I’m saying we should try and write the short version in the first place.
Try and keep your emails to a few sentences. What is the core message you are trying to convey? If you had to summarise the email in one sentence, what would it be? I’m not saying you can only send one sentence emails but you should be clear (in your head) about the key message and the purpose of the email. What outcome are you trying to achieve by sending the email? If you are clear on this, not only will it help to keep the content concise, but also help you decide if you really need to send the email in the first place.
If you form the habit of writing short emails, you’ll find that you will save a lot of time in the long run. Time that can be put to much better use. You can focus on the high leverage activities of a PM, like maintaining your plan or chasing actions. A short email can go a long way. If someone really wants all the details, don’t worry, they will ask you for them.
Writing long emails does not make you a big shot. We are project managers, and we should try and be efficient projects managers. Don’t worry about clever prose, just get the job done with a short message and hit send!
Project Manaverse 