Meryl's Notes Blog

Think Before You SEND is a Web site based on the book, Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home. The site collects stories of the worst e-mails sent.

I’ve had a few minor embarrassments from sending an e-mail to the wrong person who has the same first name as the right person. My e-mail client alphabetizes my contacts by first name, so if I enter “Cindy,” the first one that appears may not be the one I mean to e-mail. Thankfully, the e-mails either wouldn’t make sense to the wrong person or just had basic conversation with nothing weird or embarrassing.

Four rules for sending e-mails:

1. Never send an angry e-mail. Cool down. Save it as a draft. Revisit later. Remember the recipient may interpret emotional e-mails differently.

2. Leave the To: box blank to avoid accidentally sending the e-mail to the person before you finish it or review it.

3. Are you sure you should Reply All?

4. Do you need to CC (carbon copy) all those people?

Update: Not long after I posted this, I discover the authors’ manifesto on when NOT to send an e-mail appears on ChangeThis.