By Jim Calloway

Email is a part of our lives, like it or not. It is great when you need to deliver documents to another state without paying for a courier. But between all the spam, the phishing attempts to attack your computers and an appreciation that most emails contain a request for you to do something when you are already busy, email can be a source of daily frustration.

40 One-Sentence Email Tips is a quick read with some great tips, particularly the first two. And allow me to confer VIP status on number 8: “A good email with a bad subject line isn’t a good email.”

There are a few of these that I question, especially for our profession, like the one suggesting if you want a question answered, end with the question. Given how busy people are and how often we get interrupted, I’d suggest opening and closing with your most important question.

One of the best tips the author shared was to unsubscribe from electronic mailing lists that you never (or rarely) read. If you just can’t bring yourself to do that, consider creating a folder for those emails and creating a rule where all messages are routed into the folder. At least they won’t clutter your inbox and when you do decide to delete them, they are all in a handy folder.

This article is rated PG-13 for mild language.