tylerdurden@tylerdurden.com

Rules of Life: Email

• Email is immediate.  Which means you better be damn sure you want to send it before you do.
• If you are a “premature sender”, and always look back questioning “why did I say that?” … add an outlook rule that puts a 1-minute delay to sending all messages.  Trust me, you’ll thank me later.
• Create a computer shortcut key to recall a message, otherwise pay the price for sending your supervisor the email meant to your idiot friends.
• Themes/backgrounds/heavy-HTML has no place in business email templates.
• If the focus of the email has changed, for g-d’s sake, change the subject line.
• If you BCC people, send them a follow-up to let them know.  Nothing is more embarrassing than “replying all” when you weren’t supposed to be on the distribution list
• Spell check.  Spell check.  Spell check.  Spell check.  Almost every email program does it FOR YOU.  If for some crazy reason your program doesn’t, CHECK IT IN MICROSOFT WORD!  These days, there’s really no excuse to spell it “ridiculous”.
• Spell Check.  Yes, worth mentioning again.  And again and again and again…
• Do not forward me your chain letters.  It’s my work email address.  I don’t care, and now you are blocked.
• Gmail is awesome … until you try to IMAP it to outlook.  Then all those folders are just annoying.
• If your email address domain is your name, don’t make me write it twice by having it be the first part too.  There’s no need for that level of arrogance in cyberspace.