Be brief . Be brilliant . Be gone .

Four Simple Principles For Owning Your Communications

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EMAIL ETIQUETTE

Always put the answer at the beginning and the workings underneath.
Don’t make me work for the answer I need.
Emails should be short, to the point and readable in 45 seconds or less.
No less than two bullet points and no more than five.
Each point must be a grammatically correct single sentence.
Never, EVER, CC someone’s boss into an email calling for action.
Address your emails to no more than two "TO" contacts and three "CC" contacts.
"TO" contacts require a "call to action" and make sure to clearly state the outcome needed.
"CC" contacts should only be added if they can (but are not obliged to) add value.
FYI emails should be sent to a maximum of two people and marked "low priority".
Deleting any email that does not meet this criteria is perfectly acceptable and encouraged.

Meetings need to be:

Reject meeting invite if:

One pagers are exactly that … one page!
Minimum ¼ inch margin and font size is 11 or larger.
The reader will stop at the end of the page.
Slides are either four, eight or twelve.
Any more than this, then you need a marketing budget and approval as you are clearly about to speak in public. If not … stop and reduce what you have.

Do not use "text speak" in any written communication.
Turn your spell and grammar checker on.
Do not use "till" instead of "until" as "Till" is another word for "cash register" and does not have a place in general English.
Remove the words "I", "but", "should", "try", "just", "have" and "had" from your vocabulary.
When thinking of using "but", consider replacing it with "and".
If you are in charge of a task... take total ownership.
When questioned, do not use ‘Minimise, Denial, Blame and Justification' language for the result or action you were mandated to deal with and to do so would show you are not taking responsibility.