- Smileys, emoticons. If you wouldn’t put a smiley face or emoticon on your business correspondence, you shouldn’t put it in a business-related email message.
- Plaxo. Those email messages from you asking me to update my contact information. Your best customer is getting 10 of these a day! And, I don’t even remember who these people are. I went to the Plaxo Web site and opted out of receiving any of these annoying updates. Make sure you opt out for all your different email addresses.
- Senseless auto responders. How about the one that says, “Thank you for your email message. I will respond to you as soon as I can.” What a complete waste of my time to open this stupid response. It’s almost like the letter carrier leaving me a message in my mailbox saying, “I picked up your mail today. I’ll bring you more when I get it.”
- Cute shortcuts. Words from grown, business people using shortcuts such as “4 u” (instead of “for you”), “Gr8” (for great) in business-related email. Are you lazy, or just can’t type or spell? If you wouldn’t send a company letter out like that, it shouldn’t be in an email message. (This is different from legitimate abbreviations a company may develop such as NRN for No Reply Necessary.)
- Read receipt. As if you’re checking up on me to see if I open your message. I don’t know why people waste time doing this because most people probably have this feature turned off in their email program.
- Too many attachments. You should get permission before sending someone an email message with more than two attachments. Instead of sending five PDFs, consider combining them into one document. (If you receive a message in Outlook with a lot of attachments, save them all at once. Click the File menu, Save Attachments, and save them as you normally would.)
- Attachment and no body. If you send an email message about an event and no explanation in the body, I delete the message (especially if it’s a large file that would drain my ink supply if I printed it). If the details are in the body of the message, I don’t need the attachment. I don’t need to see how creative you were with your flyer. I just need the information and can drag it to my calendar.
- Abuse of my email address. I register for an event, then every week, I’m getting notices of deals, webinars, teleseminars, etc.
- Recipient names not private. No bcc and pages of email addresses in the message. (If you use Outlook, click View, bcc, and put the recipient names on this line.) And don’t forward this message to your list without clearing these addresses first.
- Passing on hoaxes instead of checking them out first. What would make you believe that Bill Gates would send you $5000 just for sending an email message? And did you know that the Teddy Bear file you so willingly deleted from your computer was a legitimate Windows file? Check it our first at About.com's Urban Legends site or Snopes.
- Who are you? People I met briefly some time ago sending me an email message without reminding me who they are.
- Messages without signature lines. Your email signature is a great way to let people know more about you, especially when your email address is something like 129ye@hot.com.
- Adding me to your email list. I just met you, barely remember you, and I’m already on your distribution list for your newsletter, thoughts for the day, and news you think I want to know.
- Bad grammar and punctuation. You can’t hide behind an administrative assistant to clean up your act, so go take some classes and learn how to write and spell. Some messages are so bad, it’s like reading a foreign language, and it wastes my time trying to figure out your mess.
- Work email abuse. People sending me non-work-related email from their job. I don’t want my name and email address showing up in company reports. (The majority of big companies monitor email.)
- Unprofessional email IDs. People who would send a business email message using addresses that begin with names such as cutesuzy, beingblessed, or hardliquor, and so on.
Peggy Duncan is a personal productivity expert and popular workshop leader. Her training topics for busy professionals cover organization, time management, and technology. She’s authored several books: Put Time Management to Work and Live the Life You Want; Conquer Email Overload with Better Habits, Etiquette, and Outlook 2003; and Just Show Me Which Button to Click! in PowerPoint 2003 (PSC Press). Visit her on the Web at www.PeggyDuncan.com for more timesaving tips, and subscribe to her free Webzine, COPE.
