I hate doing simple things wrong. Even occasionally. And, given that 90% of my work life is spent in my email application, that’s a place where I really despise making dumb mistakes. Here’s how I minimize two of the most common (and embarrassing) errors I make in email.
“Doh!” Moment Tip #1: Stop forgetting to attach your attachments:
When I’m writing the body of the email, as soon as I type the word “attach” or mention the document at all, I stop typing and attach it right then. Mid-sentence.
Then, after attaching the document, I go back and finish writing the email. This has cut down my attachment forgetfulness by more than 50%. It’s simple yet effective.
“Doh!” Moment Tip #2: Stop hitting the dreaded “reply all” button:
I moved my “reply all” button to an inconvenient place on my toolbar by customizing my menu in my email application. I’ve kept the “reply” button easily accessible on the left side, but I place my “reply all” all the way to the right. Over in No Man’s Land. I really have to want to “reply all” now.
Not only does this keep me from looking like an idiot, it also keeps me from littering the inboxes of people who don’t really need to read my reply.
Here’s how to do this:
In Apple’s Mail application: click on the gray toolbar on the top of your screen and then right-click. Pull down to “Customize toolbar”. You’ll then get a screen showing lots of buttons you can add to your toolbar, but, you can also, in this mode just grab and move the items in your existing toolbar.
In Outlook: go to View-> Toolbars-> Customize…
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This is a really great tip. The mistaken reply all is horrid. For the sender, for the receivers, everyone. It really is a “looking like an idiot” situation. And no matter what I wrote I’m always SO EMBARASSED. Even if what I wrote is totally harmless….
Wow! Great tip! Thank you!
I’ve noticed in gmail that It will alert me if I write the word Attach in my email but don’t have an attachment. Thank you gmail. You’ve saved me behind many o times.
Now – how can we get the masses to follow your tip on “Reply All”…..?
@Jenn: I didn’t know that Gmail had that clever functionality. Can Google get any cooler?
Ahhhhhhhhh. I just moved the Reply All to the far side. I even added extra space. I feel safer already.
Didn’t know that about gmail. Damn. Those Google folks are smart. Maybe I’ll have to get over my resistance to the gmail interface and use gmail more…
I too, just made the “reply all” move and feel better already.
I just have to take this opportunity to attempt to receive the “idiot” award for today’s topic. I replied all to a mailing list of others with whom I worked on an event. I wanted to surprise our team leader with a Spa Day and sent out the e-mail to ask everyone to chip in the cash. I hit send and seconds later…you guessed it, was notified that I accidentally forgot to delete our leader’s name from the mailing list before sending it. So much for a surprise! Thankfully, two friends had access to her work e-mail. One distracted her while the other hit “delete”. Thank God for people who’ve got your back.
If only there was a tip #3 for this move…
@Melinda: Oh! That’s a cringe-worthy moment. So glad it worked out well in the end.
Great tips! I never thought about removing the reply all button. One that’s helped me: if I have to write a carefully-worded reply to something a client has written me, I hit “reply” and then take out the recipient’s email address til I’m completely confident that it’s ready for primetime. It may seem dumb, but there’ve been a few times when I have to take a phone call or get distracted by an unrelated question in the middle of writing and I’ve
accidentally hit “send” before the email is complete (too many open windows!) This way I consciously have to copy and paste the address to get the message to go anywhere!
oh girl, that are wonderful tips. I HATE the “reply to all” button. here at work actually only the CEOs and their PAs can send emails to ALL of us (emails containing more ore less valuable information) and there are people replying to all. next time this happens i will send them your post.
Ooh, great tip on moving the ‘reply all’ button. Gonna do it right now… and want all my coworkers to do the same!!
I loathe the ‘reply all’ button. There are a couple of women in my work group that always use ‘reply all’ for simple things, like letting everyone know that they’re done with something. GAH!! Because a) don’t use ‘reply all’ because no one else cares, and b) no one asked for your response in the first place!!
I feel better now.
Thanks for the info on how to modify the toolbar and move the RTA button! My method for making sure I attach things is to attach them even before I fill in the subject line.
i read somewhere once that if you compose your emails backwards, you’re less likely to forget adding the subject line (yep–done that before)! In essence, writing the body first, then adding a subject line, then choosing who the email is being sent to.