The subject of your message
How important is the subject line in your emails?
These days everybody is time poor and most people are very savvy when it comes to dealing with messages. I scan the subject line of every email to assess whether to open it, ignore it or file it to review later. Your subject line is your advertisement of why someone should read your email – so make it count! Short, sharp and to the point is best and if your message is time sensitive or needs action by a certain date/time, include that in the subject line. Never have a blank subject because you will lose the majority of recipients straight away.
Try to make the subject line a summary of your message or a key action requirement, for example, “Friday meeting re-scheduled to Monday”. If you’re replying to an earlier email that isn’t related to your current topic, either start a new message or make sure you change the subject line. If the recipient thinks you’re sending another message on an old subject they may ignore it.
Helping your recipients with their time management, by using clear, actionable subject lines, will by default help you manage your time and will ensure your communication style looks professional.
Clean up with Notepad
My favourite piece of PC software is Notepad. It is a free Microsoft application which you will find under Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad.
Why is it so good? Because it cleans any text of formatting, hyperlinks, fonts, etc ready for pasting into your chosen application (for example this tips page!).
How many times have you found something interesting on the Internet that you want to use somewhere else? You copy and paste it into your document, email, blog or website only to find that it has crazy fonts, weird layout and hyperlinks attached to it.
If you paste it into Notepad first, then do [Ctrl + A] and a [Ctrl + X] from there, and paste into your new location, your pasted text will be clean and matching the format of your existing document or page.
Mysteries of the human brain
This has been floating around the internet for a while now with letters out of order, but this is the first time I have seen it with numbers. It is truly fascinating to see how the human brain works!
Apparently, if you can read this you may expect Alzheimer’s to be a long way down the road before it ever gets anywhere near you.
7H15 M3554G3 53RV35 7O PR0V3 H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5! 1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5! 1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG 17 WA5 H4RD BU7 N0W, 0N 7H15 LIN3 Y0UR M1ND 1S R34D1NG 17 4U70M471C4LLY W17H 0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17. B3 PROUD! 0NLY C3R741N P30PL3 C4N R3AD 7H15. PL3453 SH4R3 1F U C4N R34D 7H15.
It is weird, but interesting. If you can raed this, you have a sgtrane mnid, too. Can you raed this? Olny 55 people out of 100 can. I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh?
And I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!