If you're in business and use email, you've likely learned to
KISS (keep it short & simple). However many people still think
that writing an email should be like writing a letter to Aunt
Sally. Letters are traditionally long and detailed. With email,
however, you need to be laser-like, or risk losing your reader
half-way through the first paragraph.

If you spend a lot of time with email like I do, you really
appreciate emails that are short, to the point, and stick to one
topic (this makes it easier to find the information later). Use
plenty of white space to make the email easy to read. Do this by
using short 2 to 3 sentence paragraphs, and keeping the length of
the email to 4 or 5 short paragraphs. If you go much longer than
that, it might be set aside for reading later.

It's also important to put some thought into your Subject line so
that the recipient has a clue as to what the email is about. For
example, rather than saying, "I have a question for you", you
could say, "Question about our meeting tomorrow".

Something else that can be very helpful when replying back and
forth to emails is to change the Subject line if the subject
changes from the original email. I've had a hard time finding an
email by subject line when the person sending me the email
replies to me and the topic we're talking about doesn't have
anything to do with the Subject line any more.

And here is the most useful tip I can give about lasering your
email messages. When having an email discussion, cut out parts of
the email that no longer apply, and place your reply underneath
the paragraph or sentence you're replying to. Here's an example
of an email dialogue:

==========
At 10:36 AM 10-28-04 -07:00, you wrote:

  >> Wow, I can't believe the leaves are almost completely off 
  >> the trees already! We're going to spend our weekend 
  >> raking...how about you?


  The leaves have barely started turning colors here so I don't
  think we'll be raking for a while.


  >> In fact I'd like to go out to a movie this weekend but have 
  >> no idea what's playing. Any suggestions?


  Do you like animated movies?  I hear Shark Tales is pretty 
  good!


  >> I'm looking for some quick and easy recipes that I can whip 
  >> up in a half-hour or so. If you have any web sites or 
  >> cookbooks you can recommend I'd appreciate it.


  Check out Minute Meals (http://www.allfood.com/mmeal.cfm). 
  They have a quick and healthy section you might like.
==========

Pretty easy to read, isn't it?  It's just like a conversation.
You'll notice that each reply is listed directly under the
original statement (which had been reduced down to only the
message that needed to be responded to). Most email programs will
automatically put the >> in front of the original email, so you
can easily see who wrote what.

If you're a business user of email, I encourage you to sharpen
your skills for sending and replying to email. It will save you
time and energy so that you'll have more time for bigger and
better things!