Stephen Robbins here. Welcome to the Get It Done guys, quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

Email is everyone's favorite way to communicate. Whippy!

Unfortunately, email is prone to misunderstanding. We write as if we're having a conversation, but people read it as if they're having a war.

My friend had four job interviews with one company. The recruiting manager emailed saying,

In your last visit, you seemed nervous. What are your feelings about this position? I'm open to

honest conversation. Our business is all about relationships,

so it is important that we understand each other. My friend made the mistake of emailing an

honest answer to that question. She said, the interview started late. Each interviewer seemed to have a

different idea of what the job was, and the whole process has been a bit drawn out.

Needless to say, she is no longer in the running for the job. What should you never say in an email?

Mother used to say, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. That's because if you say something not nice, people give you a wedgey and hang you by your underwear from a tree

branch in the woods. My therapist is still helping me work through it.

The rule goes in triplicate for email. Email lasts forever, and it's admissible as evidence

in a court of law. If you're going to share judgments and opinions via email, say nice things

only. This sounds extreme. It is. But it's better than having your arch-nemesis pull out an

old email you wrote when frustrated and use it as evidence that you can't be trusted

to be a responsible team member.

If your job is to evaluate someone or their work, say you're an editor working with a writer,

then you may put those evaluations in email. Even then,

if you want to reduce misunderstanding, it's best to give the feedback by phone or in person

and then just send a dry, inoffensive confirmation email that recaps the feedback. The problem

is that even nice things can be misunderstood.

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