The Psychology of Email 

 

We. are in an age where everything we write when inside a firm is recorded digitally and stored on the firm servers for perpetuity.

 

Depending on the situation and our mood - this totally affects what is sent as an end result of what we were feeling.   So, some tips from me on things you want to keep close to the surface each time you draft an email.

 

Scenario:

 

1.  Something just happened where you feel you were wronged in some way.  You immediately decide to respond.  That initial email is going to show possible anger, insults, your thinking process, emotional issues that you have, insecurities that you have and will tell another person(s) more than you ever intended to reveal thus making you vulnerable.

 

2.  That email was driven by emotion and triggers that are deeply seated within your make-up.  Waiting at least a full hour before you look at the draft of that email is recommended by me.  Never ever send an email out that results from an incident or circumstance that angered you.

 

3.  Okay, it is an hour later.  You have an email on your screen that is the result of where you were an hour ago.  You have had the opportunity to calm down.  First, we want to be factual in what we are saying and we want to strip out the anger, accusations, insults etc. and purely replace it with the set of facts, what has transpired and what you feel would help to remedy the situation.  By removing the anger and other useless info, you also remove simultaneously the ammunition you could have provided to someone who may not have your best interest at heart.

 

4. By keeping an even tone and being level headed and factual, we remove the parent-child advantage that you are giving the recipient by not protesting to your "parent" regarding you being wronged.  Instead, you are in an adult to adult exchange and you are never giving the recipient unnecessary  info  pertaining to your emotions, what you may really think about them and what pushes your buttons and so forth.  

 

5.  Responding in a manner that shows confidence, understanding thoroughly the issues involved,  making a clear and cohesive suggestion as to a plan of action is going to make people deal with you very differently than loosing control.  Also, most emails that are perceived as someone went over the edge are routinely Cc'd to many others while the intended recipient of a well constructed email will only be singing your praises if they decide to distribute it to a number of people.

 

6.  Emails are forever as soon as you press that send button so keep what I said in mind and you will always look good.

 

 

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Style Separator

 

Why and How:

 

What are we talking about here.  

Scenario:  You  have a Multi-Level outline going.  Let's say level one (Heading 1) is Article 1. and level 2 (Heading 2) of the outline is Section 1.1

 

Now,  in many documents that use outlining,  the headings are by themselves and do not share the regular paragraph.  Sometimes they do, and when they do, the majority of the time it is the second level. It would look something like this:

 

Section 1.1 Provisions of the Contract.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

 

Because the section shares the paragraph, if we do not put in the Style Separator, when we run the Table of Contents it will bring in the entire paragraph into the TOC.

 

So, how do we make sure that the Level 2 Heading info gets extracted only and not the entire paragraph?

 

1.  Place you cursor after the period after the last word of the Heading 2.  In the example above, it would be the period after the word contract.

 

2.  Press your return key 1x.  This will cause the remainder of the paragraph to fall underneath the current Heading 2 we are dealing with.  Don't worry it will resolve in a moment.

 

3. Bring your cursor back up to the line where you just made your return

 

4. Do Control + ALT + Enter which will insert the style separator and the remainder of the paragraph will go back in place to its  original location.  The style separator looks like a paragraph sign surrounded by a dotted box.

 

5. Highlight from the two spaces "after" the Style Separator and change that piece over to Body Text.  Make sure you account for Justification and proper line spacing in the body text style used on the remainder of the paragraph.

 

6.  When you run the TOC only the heading info of level 2 will be extracted into the TOC and NOT the entire paragraph.

 

Give it a try when you have this situation at work.

 

 

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