The average professional spends close to one-third of their workweek reading and responding to emails. By keeping your messages concise and reducing back and forth threads you can reclaim some of this time and increase the likelihood that your messages will get a quick response.

Every day you likely receive some variety of the following emails: those you never read and either immediately delete or send to inbox purgatory, those you stop reading halfway through (or sooner), those you read but don’t follow through on because they are too wordy and complicated, and finally those special ones that you immediately reply to.

You want your emails to be the ones that people want to immediately reply to, so the first step is to make your message concise. A concise message is likely to bring you the best results for these three reasons:

1. People are more likely to actually read a clear and concise message.

All the necessary information can be absorbed efficiently.

2. People are more likely to respond to a concise message

A concise message gives the impression that the task you are requesting is also concise so not overly time-consuming, prompting a quick response.

3. Concise messages save the reader time.

Pretty self-explanatory.

Readers often interpret the length of a message as an indication of how difficult and time-consuming it will be to respond to.

The second step is to create an email protocol that will discipline you to identify the goal of your message and an efficient process (‘one and done’) for accomplishing the goal.

Even a short email can be a time suck if it takes multiple back and forth messages to reach the actual goal of the thread.

Example:

Kia ora _____

I would like to catch up with you this week about the project.

Here are three days and times that work for me. If any of these work for you let me know and we can meet at this zoom link:

If none of these work, reply with some days and times that work for you and I’ll choose one.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Nga Manaakitanga

Your goal is to optimize your email for readability and scanability and give the recipient a simple way to give you the answer you need in one response.

You can read more leader hacks here

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Nudge

Where’s the name from?

Nudge theory – the idea that every day we receive ‘nudges’ through things that we see and hear which change the way that we behave. Things like the weather forecast, an advertisement, a song or advice from a friend.

Why should you give it a listen?

The impact of using nudges to positively influence behaviour has proven to be so successful that large companies, the military, and even countries have formed units to build nudging strategies to accomplish their objectives.

Is it banter and filler or does it get right into the kaupapa?

Someone compared listening to the host to listening to “an emotionless BBC talk show, which is a vibe for some people.” I don’t think this is my vibe but I like the show and found the host to mostly be articulate and concise. I guess you can’t have everything.

Check this out

Ever heard of unethical amnesia? Have a read of this.

Which Bible character would have made this?

Solomon. He knew how to use his words to get what he wanted.

Does it make you wanna ka whawhai tonu?

Our brains are wired to be influenced by external factors. So, 1. I want to be more aware of what those influences are and, 2. I want to use those powers for good.

Bangin’ quote from the podcast

“Message framing affects us in all walks of life…framing has boosted coca cola sales, encouraged thousands to contribute to Wikipedia, fuelled Peloton’s growth. And was the reason Amazon paid their employees $5k to quit.”

Where can I listen?

You can listen to the podcast here

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