On the off-chance one of your resolutions is to write more effective emails in the New Year…

Here’s a short report I posted about a year ago, offering some thoughts on how to write emails that get the results you want.

Although this report is a year old, the information is still entirely relevant today, and now is the perfect time of year (well, at least as good a time as any) to improve your skills. I hope you enjoy it.

How to Write Emails that Get Results

Happy New Year!

1. Write like you talk.


One of the fastest ways to improve your writing is not to write any word or phrase you wouldn’t use in conversation. That means deleting a phrase like “I am of the opinion that” — and replacing it with the conversational “I think.” Don’t worry — your readers won’t miss the formal stuff.

2.When in doubt, hit “Enter.”


A two- or three-line paragraph is a lot easier to read than a seven-line paragraph. Break up your longer blocks of text.

3. Avoid vague expressions.


Precise language is a key to great writing. Watch your use of “I’ll have that any day now” or “I’m finalizing the report.” Replace these with phrases that give concrete information – “I’ll have it for you Tuesday.”

4. Give your points room.


Want to make a point as strongly as possible? Give it lots of breathing room on the page or screen. Nothing makes a statement like “We came in under budget” more powerful or memorable than placing it all alone in its own paragraph.

5. Watch the jargon.


COTS. WYSIWYG. FASB. What am I talking about? Exactly. Not all of your readers know the quirky language of your area of focus. So when you’re writing for any audience other than your inner circle of co-workers, don’t use jargon without defining each term. 

Don’t use words that might trip you up.

A confession: I almost always mispronounce the word “distribute” or any variation of it – distributing, distribution, distributor, etc. – especially when I’m talking fast. If I’m describing a series of participants in a supply chain, for example – “… manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors…” – I’ll place the emphasis on the wrong syllable and say “dis-tributors” rather than “dis-trib-utors.”

During a live presentation you get just one chance to deliver each line, each word, flawlessly. If you stumble over or mispronounce a word, it can disrupt the flow of the point you’re making. If it happens more than a few times, it can also make both you and your audience uncomfortable.

It’s a good idea to monitor yourself for any words that trip you up – your own versions of “distribute” – and make a point to keep those words out of your live talks.

When you catch yourself in conversation slipping up on a word, jot it down and add it to your list. Then, when you’re preparing notes for your presentation, you can refer to that list and make sure that no part of your talk will put you in a position where you have to use one of these words.

It’s also a good idea to keep out long, complex words from your presentations. All of us occasionally trip over words like “inexplicable,” “extemporaneous” or “demagoguery.” So try not to include words like these in your presentations or speeches.

Delete.

Trim fat. Leave less. Cut, cut, cut. Your writing will be far better.

Clean your desk.

Sounds like an odd tip for better writing. But stay with me.

Imagine you’re about to write a policy memo to your staff. You lift the file folders off of your chair and set them on the floor, then sit down at your cluttered desk (which your colleagues call “Mount Stackapaper”).

You remember that one of the files you just set on the floor has an important letter you need to read before this afternoon’s conference call. You remind yourself to dig out that letter as soon as possible.

Next you push aside a small pile of notebooks blocking your mouse, and you realize one of them has your notes from the morning’s staff meeting, which you need to type up and distribute. Note to self: do that after the policy memo… no, wait, after you read that letter in the file on the floor.

You grab your mouse, open a blank document on your word processor, and begin thinking of a title for your policy memo. But then you spot a series of sticky notes affixed to your monitor. One of them reminds you to “CALL JANICE RE: OPEN ENROLLMENT QUESTION!” Note to self: call Janice, then find notes in notebook, then read the letter that’s somewhere on the floor.

The clutter around your workspace is sending you a constant stream of reminders and obligations and distractions. The mess is keeping you from being able to focus fully on your current task: writing that policy memo.

Even if you manage to complete a draft, what are the chances it will be as good as it could be? Not very good, because you’ll have written it over the constant, distracting noise of your office clutter.

Contrast that scenario with sitting down to write at a completely clean desk. You pull up your chair and see only your monitor, mouse and keyboard in front of you. You take a deep breath and begin focusing on just one thing: policy memo. That ability to focus, that clarity in your mind about the task at hand, means you are going to write a better document.

Related suggestion: A clean, organized workspace is ideal for writing time. But if you can’t clear the clutter, and you can’t find a clean space for writing, use someone else’s desk. Their clutter might be annoying, but it won’t mean anything to you, so it won’t be as distracting as your own.

We just launched a personal-finance course online for young people: Money Savvy Teen.

Not sure why every teenager doesn’t learn basic money skills in school — like how to write a check, how to create a budget, or even how to spot the signs they’re spending money for the wrong reasons. Seems these skills should be at least as important in educating young people as learning a foreign language (which, come to think of it, the language of money is to most kids).

So here’s our tiny contribution to this effort.

You can try a free demo of the course here. Hope you enjoy it.

Hunter. Gatherer. Now those were careers.

Sure, the working conditions were awful: no national holidays, zero room for advancement, and incompetence or laziness meant starvation. And yeah, prehistoric roles were unglamorous. (Although a hunter who returned to his village carrying a deer carcass probably enjoyed rock-star attention from the “gatherers.”) And okay, a hunter on the prowl or a gatherer picking fruit could always be eaten by a bear. But these primitive jobs had something that our pampered, professional class of “strategic planners” and “knowledge engineers” might never find in their work: Meaning.

When a man became a “hunter,” he certainly had a clear job description: Protect family from lions. Find deer. Kill deer. Return to village. Let all village women see deer carcass in hand. Cook deer carcass. Carry wife into tent. Impregnate wife. Leave tent and resume protecting family from lions.

He might not have been developing a cutting-edge application that’ll revolutionize the way small businesses manage their back-office operations, but “Hunter” knew his role in life. If he put in a solid day’s work, he had the satisfaction of watching his family enjoy a nourishing meal that night. “Gatherer,” too, knew if she returned with a basketful of fresh fruit, she’d get to watch her offspring enjoy a delicious dessert. (This is where we get the phrase “enjoying the fruits of our labor.” Probably. Makes sense.)

Despite all the comforts of modern life, all the advances of the technological age and all the opportunities for career personalization and fulfillment, today’s professional is miserable. Why? Too much choice, too much comfort, too much personalization is not good for the human psyche.

“You can be anything you want in this world,” we’re told as children. What a curse. In hunter-gatherer societies, your choices were: 1. hunter; 2. gatherer. How about today? Entrepreneur, graphic designer, graphic designer with a specialty in print ads, graphic designer with a specialty in web ads, motivational speaker, sports agent, sports manager, sports promoter, motivational-speaker promoter, grifter, personal trainer, personal fitness instructor….

Ever notice how much the word “choice” sounds like the word “nightmare?” Eerie, isn’t it?

Our hunter-gatherer friends didn’t have these anxieties. Here’s how the typical prehistoric career-counseling session went:

Prehistoric Career Counselor: Timmy, thank you for taking a few minutes from your studies to discuss your professional future.

Timmy: I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. But it’s got to be something fulfill…

Prehistoric Career Counselor: You’ll be a hunter.

Timmy: But what if I don’t want to be a hunter?

Prehistoric Career Counselor: Then you’ll die. Get back to class.

Sure, little Timmy might have been sad for a brief moment that he wouldn’t go on to invent the job of supervisor of carcass removal or executive vice president of tent repair or regional manager of firewood gathering. But chances are he likely went on to an important career as a hunter, provider for his family, and protector of the next generation. Unless a bear ate him.

Even later societies—right up until modern times, in fact—have understood the dangers of burdening their young with unlimited career choice. So they cleverly placed a clue as to what society expected of them right in their name: Weaver, Miller, Taylor, Wright, Cook, Porter, Cooper, Savage. People knew their roles in life, and they lived those roles with honor.

Purpose. It’s what we all crave, and we cannot be happy or fulfilled without it, no matter how many comforts we invent to insulate ourselves from life’s unpleasantness. No advancement or luxury will ever supplant our need to find purpose in our lives. How ironic that prehistoric man and woman had it all figured out thousands of years ago. And couldn’t they have taken a break from the cave-wall drawings for just a minute to leave us future generations us a message to explain all this?

But, wait a minute. We’ve made progress, haven’t we? We have women in the workforce. That’s new, right? Sorry. Prehistoric humans had the two-income family, too: hunter and gatherer. But we have professionals to help us find the right career. Isn’t that an innovation? Not so fast. Little Timmy had an adult give him his professional choices: 1. hunter; 2. Death.

Okay, but you’ve got to admit that in modern life, we each have the opportunity to do something that will make a real contribution to society.

Really?

Do you think today’s typical professional enjoys a real sense of purpose? Ask a “distribution manager” or “public relations account executive” if they have any idea what they’ve contributed to their community at the end of a typical workday. Or better yet, find a “branding strategist” or “corporate evangelist,” and ask them if they even fully understand what the hell they do.

Ever notice how much the word “progress” sounds like the phrase “losing sight of the things that really matter?” Strange, huh?

Sadly, the classified ads in modern times are no longer cover-to-cover “hunter” jobs, and you won’t even find many openings anymore for “weaver” or “savage.” No, unfortunately, we’ve made progress. So we can expect long, unfulfilling professional lives as “risk-assessment specialists” and “associate managers of business development,” where we’ll attend brainstorming sessions, complete action items, implement our companies’ strategic visions, and then go home each night and contemplate a life of crime.

If I had a dime for every time someone asked me this question, I could stop being one. (I wouldn’t, though, because I love the work.)

A copywriter is simply a writer — a writer stuck with a silly and needlessly confusing title.

Most of the text you read in a given day — newspaper articles, billboard advertisements, corporations’ websites, sales letters, junk mail — is called “copy” in the business world. Copywriters are simply those professionals who write this stuff — mostly for businesses or other types of organizations. I write website text, press releases, articles for magazines, speeches, educational materials, newsletters — all called copy.

Now that you know what we copywriters do, you can see what a goofy job title we have. Copy means words. That means we are described essentially as “writers of words.” (As opposed to writers of something else, I suppose — lamps, for example.)

It’s an odd quirk of the profession that “copywriter” contains such an obvious redundancy right in the title — especially odd when you consider this is a profession of people supposedly good with words.

Just in case you were curious.

We can send a movie signal from a satellite thousands of miles above the earth to the TV in our living room, with perfect picture. We can have a cell phone conversation in a moving car with someone thousands of miles away — who’s also in a moving car — with nearly perfect sound quality.

So why can’t I understand a word coming out of that fast-food drive-through intercom?

So if my power goes out, I can go online to the power company’s website for updates on the situation?