The Importance of Email Communication

by: Claire Duarte

 
 

Now more than ever, maintaining regular communication with teachers, counselors, friends, & family is SO important! We are living in an electronic world. Additionally, with limited face-to-face contact, maintaining communication - whether it’s text, email, phone calls- is so important to staying in touch and getting things done. 

For students, here are a few tips to managing email on a regular basis:

  1. Check your email: this may or may not have been a habit of yours prior to virtual learning, but it is very crucial now! If it helps, add your email (either personal or school) as a bookmark to your browser favorites, that way it’s easier to pull up. 

    1. Check 3X/day: I recommend checking your email at least 3X/day. The goal is that this will become an eventual habit, but to start: you can break it down by checking before school/classes start - around breakfast time, again at lunch, and then again either after school or dinner time. 

  2. Write that email: not sure where to start? Always have a short, but clear & simple subject line. In the body of the message, you always want to start with: Dear _______ , (making sure to properly capitalize and address the individual you are speaking to, ie: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., etc). Then SPACE (or ENTER) down to then begin typing your actual message. When writing out your message you want to be sure to be clear, simple, as well as to explain yourself clearly as needed. Do you have a question for your teacher? Need to thank a counselor for help? Asking group-mates questions about your project ? All important items that need to be sent! Once you have written your message, be sure to end the email with a clear: Thank you, _______ (YOUR NAME).

  3. ASSIGNMENTS: It is always important to be communicating with your teachers/professors about your assignments, particularly if you turned it in late, had a question, needed to re-upload/attach, etc. Instead of feeling shameful, know that you have the power to reach out and talk it over with your teacher! But it starts with you initiating that email. Idea on how to start: “Dear ____, I apologize for forgetting to properly attach my homework yesterday. I have re-attached the correct document. Can you confirm that you received it? Thanks, _____” 

  4. Timing is everything: The sooner you send the email, the better! If you have a question on the homework or what was taught in class that day, do not wait until 5 minutes before it is due. The sooner you can reach out for help & support, the higher chance you have of getting a quicker response back.

  5. TROUBLESHOOTING: you sent the email, but haven’t gotten a response: so what do you do? Depending on how urgent the matter is, typically waiting 2-3 days is appropriate. EX, if you have a group project due Friday, you sent an email to the group Monday, and you haven’t heard back from them by Tuesday evening - I would send another (OR in this case, make sure you also inform your teacher via email to keep them in the loop should your group members not be responsive!).

  6. EMAIL MANAGEMENT: it’s important to check your email daily, but even better to keep it CLEAR so that you can get rid of unwanted or unneeded messages. Here is one way I like to keep my email inbox clear & organized:

    1. USE FOLDERS: I love using folders! It really helps to keep my inbox messages to a minimum, and I store things in the folders when I’m done with them.

    2. DELETE: what do you really need ? There are certainly cases where you SHOULD NOT delete emails (i.e. school, medical, family, etc). But things like junk, advertisements, shopping, etc can often get deleted so it’s not taking up space!

    3. UNSUBSCRIBE: similar to delete - but if you get a lot JUNK or unneeded items, open the email, scroll to the bottom & hit unsubscribe! The less items filtering into your inbox, the less “virtual clutter” you will have! 

    4. USE STARS: if you go to your email settings (particularly in google email), you can select from the icons (such as different colored stars) to use - that way you can note which emails are of certain importance to you. To do this, you can create a color-coding system. EX: Blue = not urgent, Green = complete this week, Yellow = is complete by End of Day, Red = URGENT, needs to take care of ASAP. Just an idea of how to use these.

    5. ALWAYS OPEN & READ EMAILS: For me personally, I am not a fan of setting notifications both on my phone and computer. So I often will read messages briefly (or skim really quick!) and then star them as I need to, especially if I didn’t have time to read the whole thing quite yet.

My inbox used to be OVERFLOWING, and I thought this was just completely normal, until I realized I could control the flow of emails and work on a daily basis to keep the messages in my inbox to a minimum - and it has been a mental game changer for me! I no longer feel stressed & overwhelmed (or embarrassed!) every time I open my email. I never have unopened emails just sitting because I have opened them, read them, and decided what needs to get done with it. I hope these tips will help & inspire you as well!

Lauren Eckert