How many times have you clicked “Send” on an email and then realize you forgot the attachment? The whole reason for the email was the attachment, and you did such a masterful job of explaining all about it. When you finished that explanation, you thought, “I’m done!” So you clicked “Send.”


Only you weren’t done. In fact, now you send a second email explaining you forgot to send the attachment.

How about this one: You write your subject line, but by the time you get through composing the email, its various twists and turns have caused it to stray from what the subject line originally said.

To solve both problems, learn to write better emails using a rather different technique: We’re going to write the email backwards.

Add Attachments

If the email is going to have attachment, start by determining exactly which documents you will send. Attach them to the new email before you ever compose a word. You have just eliminated the possibility of forgetting them.

Are you replying to or forwarding an email and need to add attachments? If so, add those attachments before crafting the text.

Compose the Text

Go to the body of the email and say what you are going to say. When messages are long, people don’t read them. Therefore, let the message resemble an upside-down pyramid. Front-load the message with the most important information. Let the details bring up the rear. The reader gets the idea immediately of what needs to happen.

If your email is more than a screen in length, consider breaking it into two emails, each one covering a slightly different subject. When an email is lengthy, a phone call may be a better option.

Compose the Subject Line

Look at the email you have written and sum it up in a subject line as descriptive as possible. Can the reader look at that subject line and know what it’s going to mean to him/her? Many times, you will find you can write the entire email with just the subject line!

Avoid subject lines such as “Important” or “Meeting.” If you want to show an email is important, use the “!” priority symbol your email program provides. “Need your approval on this proposal by Friday” gets the point across much better than “Important.” “Can you attend the XYZ meeting on the 13th at 9:00?” is much better than “Meeting.” If we can look at the subject line and know we can quickly take care of it, it’s just human nature to act on that email.

If you are replying to an email or forwarding one, is the present subject line still applicable? If not, change it to one which is (especially if the original was “Important” or “Meeting”).

Address the Email

You can send an email even though you forgot an attachment. You can send an email even if you forgot a subject. You can even hit the “Send” button by mistake before even composing a word of your text. But, you cannot send an email without a properly-formatted email address in the address line. Save this step for last.

Proof-read your email. Double-check that the attachments are there. As the final step, address the email. Now, you are ready to send! You’ve just learned to write better emails, and it’s easy.

Write your email backwards. See if it doesn’t help you escape some of those blunders and write better emails.

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