Being clear in your own mind about why you are sending an email is the first step for making that purpose clear to your readers. Most email falls into four basic types: meeting requests, event announcements, questing action, taking action. Your ability to accomplish one of the four purposes is enhanced by tactics tailored to each purpose.

This post describes step 2 of the PAASTUB (pronounced “paystub”) email process: Action. Make what you need and when you need it explicit in your email messages.

Only send email to recipients that need to know the content. The Addressees of your email message should only be the people who will be truly grateful for receiving it. Use the Cc: field of email sparingly. NEVER automatically “reply to all.”

Only send email to recipients that need to know the content. The Addressees of your email message should only be the people who will be truly grateful for receiving it. Use the Cc: field of email sparingly. NEVER automatically “reply to all.”

BLUF: After several forwards and replies, the average email contains an enormous quantity of non-value-added text. “Take out the trash” from your emails means to remove all unnecessary text before sending. Take a little bit of extra time to improve clarity and focus readers on just what is important for accomplishing your purpose.

BLUF: Delete or paraphrase ugly (insensitive or intemperate) remarks in email from yourself or others to avoid future pain and embarrassment. Send a separate note to people that write such things asking them refrain in the future.

BLUF: The Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) describes the essence of your email in three sentences, plus or minus one. Reading the BLUF alone should be sufficient to understand both the action and its importance. Creating a good BLUF also helps you clarifies your thoughts about the message.