Can we stop with those endlessly long emails?

Sometimes I get emails that I click away in shock because they are so terrifyingly long. Especially from business emails with subheadings, I get an increased heart rate and evasive behavior. It's as if my math class in high school is starting, I have absolutely no desire to do this.

How I deal with long emails part 1: I’ll call you. First of all to say that I find your email incredibly long and then to ask if you can explain it to me over the phone. In this case, you waste time twice, which I would strongly advise against.

How I deal with long emails part 2: I immediately drag your email into my archive after reading an intro. The moment it seems that I need the information, I dig up the piece of text and scan it for a possible answer.

A long email is a waste of your time because you have to write it. But a long email is also a waste of my time because I have to think ten times about postponing reading it before I actually read and respond to it. Therefore, I advocate that a business email should never be longer than two paragraphs. You start with a ‘hi, how are you, how was your weekend‘ and get to the point in the second paragraph. Or you start as I always do with the point and then write the friendly ‘hi, how are you, how was your weekend’ above it. But whatever you do, especially don’t use bold in your emails unless it’s a subheading. Bold words are actually an insult, it says: you probably won’t read this well anyway, so I do this so you will read it, which increases the chances that someone (me) will read your email even less quickly.

After the endless-long-unbearable email, there’s also the too short email, which is downright blunt. Make sure your short email is never shorter than five words and ensure that your greeting and name are part of it. “Yes, that’s fine. Regards, Lisa” is really a great email to receive. But if you only get “Fine,” then this could say so much more. For example: “Fine, forget it, I’m mad at you and therefore respond in one word.” But also: “Fine, I’m totally okay with it, but I answer my emails in the bathroom and therefore can’t do it any longer.” In both cases, you don’t want the recipient to think this. By the way, you can agree on a code with colleagues so you don’t waste too much time in the mailbox. We have ‘agreed’, where the recipient knows it’s the cheerful version of ‘okay’.

You understand: mailers are just people.