I love your list of codes!

They fit with my “First Law of Enlightened Self-Interest in E-Mail” — The clearer your action request in a Subject line, the sooner you’ll get a meaningful answer back.

I get a lot of email a day, and I have started processing it almost immediately, after reading the productivity entry you wrote.

I have a formula too. I acknowledge receipt personally with a quick Got it and Thanks! I respond to my boss who is always forgetting if he sent me something. I am using draft mode more. If I do a brain dump in a draft, then I can go back later to craft it but I don’t have to remember what the hell I needed to write about.

I don’t turn the email off, but I do turn the sound down (Ta Daa! is my new mail sound) and I might turn the monitor off too if I am proofing.

And finally, I have started adding labels in the subject line, not for the other guy, but for my Sent Item sorting.

Thanks for the tips. You’ve made the constant interruption of email more productive for me.

Summarize action items at the end of a message so everyone can read them at one glance.

Oh. Oh dear, no. Unfortunately, as much as I still lo these years on feel a twinge of wrongness on top-posting, this is one thing we can’t change. E-mail doesn’t get read until the end. People skim, look for keywords and their name, and bang on. Well, not all people, but we’re talking about people with e-mail overload here.

Here’s something where AP style comes into play. From top to bottom, the most important things start at the top and the more detail goes at the bottom. If it’s unimportant put it at the very end so people can ignore it or cut it off. If you need to summarize or expect something, PUT IT AT THE TOP. If there’s any polite social niceties to observe, use them to leaven your bluntness, but don’t try to disguise it.

Dan,