recovering economist
Ok, first of all, I always remember emails that have not been answered.
I remember them like a scorned elephant remembers a decade old off-handed comment from his ex-wife.
I, on the other hand, have NEVER not returned an email.
At least that I remember.
You remember emails you sent that were not answered better than emails that you did not answer.
-Nassim Taleb, The Bed Of Procrustes
Here’s to five sentence email.
Five sentences or less, that is.
I just love this from: http://five.sentenc.es/
The Problem
E-mail takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow for those who receive a lot of it.
The Solution
Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.
They even suggest adding the following to the end of your emails:
Q: Why is this email five sentences or less?
A: http://five.sentenc.es
Let’s have more simple and clear writing.
Just. Like. This.