Tip of the Week: Don’t Enter To and CC on Email Until Ready to Send
April 23rd, 2007 (11:52am) Anne Zelenka 13 Comments
Thejesh GN offers 7 email tips for office users. This one’s particularly good:
- Don’t enter the email address into to or cc before composing the mail. There is a chance to hit ctrl+enter (send) any time. Leading to half composed mails being sent. Hence compose the mails first. Then add to and cc.
If you follow this advice, you might also avoid sending rants and flames that are better left in the Drafts folder. That’s a good thing — unless you’re trying to screw up business dealings by email.
Send your tricks and tips about using the web for work to tips AT webworkerdaily dot com.
13 Comments Post your own comment
monica says: April 23rd, 2007 3:25pm
Wow! Great advise. I would still have my job if I hadn’t accidently “replied” to a customer’s inquiry, instead of my original intentions to forward my “message” to my co-worker. The customer replied to my email in which I had more or less insulted her directly, and asked if I meant to send it to her or my co-worker….OOPS!!! ;0
Peter Garner says: April 23rd, 2007 3:37pm
Yeah, it’s also great advice! ;-) I’m surprised it isn’t a more widely circulated tip.
Sergio says: April 23rd, 2007 5:01pm
The To and Cc fields should have already been moved to the bottom of the window. Or at least that should be an option. Furthermore, these fields should require some user acknowledgment from the user (a simple click in the text box) to guarantee that the user has at least looked at it, only after that the Send button would be enabled. Wow! Can you tell I have screwed up in the past? :)
mathew says: April 23rd, 2007 10:52pm
i have often used this trick to save myself from major heartache – it’s useful in your personal life as well as your professional life.
i also what to contribute this post to wwd – my advice from a worker on how to be effectively managed:
http://mattishness.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-manage-matt.html
does anyone else feel this way?
Judi Sohn says: April 24th, 2007 3:16am
To add to this…don’t trust address auto-fill. For example, if you usually hit “c” and it fills in a certain co-worker, don’t assume that will always happen. Maybe if you’re going fast, you’ll hit “c” and this time it will auto-fill in the address for a work-related mailing list that goes out to 50 people.
…just sayin’…not that I have ANY personal experience in doing this twice in the last few months.
Just very grateful that in one of the messages the only person I had mentioned by name was to compliment her. :-)
Thejesh GN says: April 24th, 2007 7:48am
@judi
True. How did I miss that one. That has happened with me too.
Anne Zelenka says: April 24th, 2007 8:26am
I’m thinking a greasemonkey script could move the To and CC fields below the compose field on Gmail? That’d be useful. Rearrange your email composition window for the right workflow.
Matt: I love the idea of applying a portfolio management approach to work life… I definitely do that, eliminating losers without remorse and doubling-down on winners.
Judi: good tip! I also run into trouble when I have multiple contacts with the same first name (Ryan is the most common for some reason!) I have to be careful not to send messages to the wrong one.
Letters I've Written, Never Meaning to Send « Great Presentations Mean Business says: April 24th, 2007 8:32am
[...] Similar advice quoted on Web Worker Daily 4/24/2007 [...]
CB says: April 24th, 2007 4:06pm
Or leave the subject line blank.
Most apps will prompt you to fill it in before sending. And the subject may change from when you start composing an email to when it’s completed.
Tips for Composing Complete E-mails « Parsing Mobile says: April 24th, 2007 4:45pm
[...] April 24th, 2007 · No Comments Nice tips, via WWD: [...]
Sameer says: April 26th, 2007 5:13pm
Nice Post.
Outlook auto fill can be quite dangerous especially if you use Outlook to access a few accounts (personal+ work) and have all your contacts in one place. Outlook 2002 would some times force resolve the email address for some one in your address book that has 2 email address based on what you use the most. Type in a preferred email address and it resolves to the other one on file. Really wierd.
Alex Singleton says: June 13th, 2007 1:19am
This is very important advice. The Ctrl-Return sending by accident problem is right pain.
Letters I’ve Written, Never Meaning to Send - [TEST BLOG] says: August 23rd, 2008 11:22pm
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