Outlook for Mac 2011 Best Practices: Write great e-mail

Read your message before you send it.

Make your subject descriptive and action-oriented. For example: Sales Team, Please send proposed Board Retreat Dates, where Sales Team is the name of the group, and Please send is the action. Other useful prefixes include FYI, and Action Required,.

If action is required, state what you want in the Subject box.

Change the subject of the message if the topic of the conversation changes.

Keep all messages short and to the point.

Organize the content of your message from most important to least.

Consider bolding important information.

Put action items or questions on separate lines so that they stand out and get noticed.

Bold people's names when asking questions. For example: “Ryan: What is the status of the project?

Limit the number of people to whom you send a message to those who need to read it.

Put people who need to be informed on the Cc line.

Put people who need to respond or take action on the To line.

Use a signature when appropriate, but keep your signature simple, short, professional, and if possible, free of graphics.

If you want an immediate response, don't send a message. Phone or send an instant message.

If you are on an email conversation that has more than 10 messages without a resolution, consider setting up a meeting to discuss the issue. Email is not always an efficient medium for resolving complex issues. With the message selected, on the Home tab, click Meeting.

Acknowledge messages that require a more extensive response. If you are too busy to respond with a full answer right away, let the sender know that you are looking into the issue and will respond by a certain time or date. Flag it for yourself to do later.

Use High Priority sparingly.

If you are asking a question and there are several people who could respond, choose just one person rather than sending your question to a group.

Don't include your manager on every message you send.

Don't send a message when you are angry. Better to write it, save it to your drafts folder, and come back to it later.

Don't expect a quick response when sending long messages (more than two paragraphs).

Don't send a follow-up message less than a day after the first message. If you don't hear back in a timely manner, try using the phone or Instant Messaging.

Don't attach flags to every message you send. Your recipients will learn to ignore them.

Don't use ALL CAPS.

Don't send attachments — send links instead. This rule applies especially to meeting requests, where attachments can contribute significantly to server quotas.

Don't expand contact groups (distribution lists). Expanding contact groups (distribution lists) makes messages harder to read and causes them to go into the wrong mail folders for people using rules.

Don't use sarcasm. Your humor might be misunderstood.

Don't write something you wouldn't want everyone in your company to read. You never know where your message might end up.

Don't use cursive or "funny" fonts that are hard to read.

Don't use red fonts, because they are hard to read and can be interpreted as being critical.

Don't use Reply All to a Contact Group asking to be removed.

Flag it for yourself on send.

Mark it with the @Waiting category.

When you take these steps, you know that your next action is to send another message or watch for a response.

Tip  Reminding yourself to send another message is often more effective than flagging the message for your recipient. Similarly, when you promise to do something in a message, flag it for yourself so that you have a task in your Task list to remind you.

Reply with the correct Contact Group or person on the To line.

Have replies sent to the correct Contact Group or person.

Don’t put the original Contact Group on the Bcc line, because your message will not be filtered by other people's rules. Rather, leave the Contact Group on the To or Cc line.