 | | Sophi Miyoko Gullbrants |
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How many times have you seen that line in an email this year and thought, “Well, no, this email does not find me well — I’m terrible, thanks.” |
None of us are well! There’s still a deadly virus raging across the country, more than 1,000 people are dying every day, millions of people have lost their jobs, unemployment benefits are precarious, it’s still impossible to predict what the economy will do or when it will do it, we don’t really have social lives, culture is mostly still on pause, we don’t know when a vaccine will come … things are bleak! And pretending otherwise in an email isn’t helping. |
And yet: Emails, those daily incursions no one likes but no one can avoid, are still a core part of our personal and professional lives. They must still be written and read, whatever is happening around us. |
So how do we write them without sounding tone deaf or misguidedly optimistic? |
Well, what’s in a greeting, anyway? |
The email greeting, no one’s favorite thing to write even in the Before Times, has been exposed by the pandemic for its stodgy emptiness; a hollow, yet necessary, formality. But now we’re forced to consider what we’re actually saying when we’re really not saying much. Poking fun at those old greetings — “Hope you’ve been well!” “Just wanted to check in!” “Good to be in touch!” — has become its own form of coping as we reach for any bit of levity in such grim times, experts said. |
“What this experience has shown me is that we have leaned on the generic, surface-level greetings for too long,” said Elaine Swann, a lifestyle and etiquette expert. “That has probably, in some instances, harmed our relationships and our dealings with people. So I think one of the things we can learn from this moment is to have transparency and to share your personal truth, or to dig a little deeper and acknowledge that things are not going well.” |
Respect, honesty, consideration |
What is truly appropriate for right now? How can we write an email and be casual without seeming inauthentic, or be personal without seeming smarmy? Should we try out a little humor, even though, for so many people, there is no humor to be found right now? |
Ms. Swann suggested we try observing what she calls the three core standards of proper etiquette and protocol: respect, honesty and consideration. |
“People are really being impacted by everything from Covid to the civil unrest we’re experiencing,” she said. “So we cannot just go about business as usual. We have to show our human side.” |
Ms. Swann recommends that, rather than try to glaze over the context in which we’re all living and the struggles that come with it, we should lean in to being honest about what we’re going through. That vulnerability, she said, serves many purposes: It can deepen the connections with the people in your life; it can help your co-workers better understand problems you might be dealing with; and it can help us all buck the “just push through it” attitude that some workplaces have accepted as normal. |
Be comfortable, within reason |
Before sending your next email, give it an “emotional proofread,” suggests Liz Fosslien, an author of “No Hard Feelings,” which examines how emotions affect our work lives. |
“You have to a little bit assume the worst-case scenario,” she said. What if you email someone a joking open, and they just had a loved one die of coronavirus,” she said. “It’s not out of the world of possibility.” |
To do an emotional proofread of your email, put yourself in the receiver’s shoes, and try to imagine what you would feel if you got this email. Consider what you know about this person, your relationship with them and what they might be going through. A quick gut-check before you hit send could save the receiver from unintended anguish. |
Don’t overthink your greetings and signoffs, either. A kind, genuine and straightforward check-in at the beginning of an email may be all you need, Ms. Swann said. |
“I call it exactly what it is,” she said of her own email greetings. “I start my emails saying, ‘I hope you and your family are safe and well.’” But above all, Ms. Swann said, allow yourself to be a person who is struggling, because we all can understand that. |
Thanks for reading my email, and I hope you’re as well as you can be in these trying times. |
This week, I’ve invited Kara Cutruzzula, who writes the work and creativity newsletter Brass Ring Daily and is the author of the motivational journal “Do It For Yourself,” to give us a trick for starting a new morning routine. |
Some C.E.O.s allegedly start their day at 4 a.m., but during lockdown I found myself sleeping later and later. Some days my morning oatmeal didn’t make an appearance until noon. The lack of routine made the days fly, and not in a good way. So in April, I texted my younger brother Eric and said I needed to get out of this pattern. We created a plan: the 10:11 Club. |
Every weekday for the past four months, we’ve chosen one task, declared it in a text message before 10:11 a.m. and worked on it until noon. That’s it. And it’s magic. |
The 10:11 Club is a beautiful Frankenstein of productivity advice. You have an accountability partner, a deep work session and an ending time. And for people who are working from home, unemployed or furloughed, it mimics the “get up and go” feeling of properly starting the day. |
Our text chain expanded and now a handful of friends share their tasks and get to work every morning. They’ve constructed apartment podcast booths, researched story ideas, worked out, written TV pilots and revised artistic statements. We give each other hope. |
You can start a solo club and declare the task on a Post-it note, rope in a friend or shout about your 10:11 task on social media. Try to focus on a goal that’s important but not necessarily urgent. Time-sensitive tasks always eventually get done. You file your taxes, respond to your boss’s email or finish your presentation. It’s the knottier, evergreen tasks that hang over your head. These same tasks can also accelerate your career or creative life from, well, 10 to 11. All it takes is a little chunk of time every day. Join the 10:11 Club. |
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