- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
I don’t know about you, but I really struggle with emails. These sentences were really helpful!
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Always happy to help!
No I’m not <.<
Could you do (time)?
I will never be able to pick a time :-\
It’d be easier to discuss in person
NOOOOPE
(Being assertive)
Not a chance :'D
This stuff is all bad for me 😅Let me guess… ADHD and social anxiety?
Oh, very social anxiety 🙀Probably some ‘the spectrum’ funs too.
… I can barely leave my bedroom <.< hides under pillow
Solidarity. I shall stay in this house as my tomb.
I also can’t recognize why some of these sentences are better or worse than others.
You poor thing - please read me saying that with tons of compassion as I have social anxiety myself. Technically generalized anxiety disorder, but definitely with a social flavor to it. I hope you can find things that work to make life better!
I prefer my favorite one: “as per my previous email”
Yeah the “as” is totally unnecessary.
Business speak for "bitch, can you fucking read?"
Bit of a tangent, not just emails, not just professionaly, but one thing I find saves me a lot of stress is that I ask less unnecessary questions.
Not: Would you like to join me / go with me and do x? You can’t go on day x? What about day y?
Instead: I’m going to do X at date, location, time. If you want you can join me, let me know.
Not: Can you do X?
Instead: I would like you to do X.
Not: When will it be ready?
Instead: I’m assuming it’ll be ready by X. Let me know if this is correct.
Not: What’s the deadline?
Instead: I can have this done by X. Let me know if this is acceptable.
TLDR: don’t ask people permission or assume they won’t be ok with what you want to do. Tell them what you’re doing/planning/expecting, offer them the opportunity to help/join/give input.
Bonus: makes you come across as less uncertain and saves a lot of back and forth.
I’ve found that some people don’t respond if you ask for confirmation “will that be finished by tomorrow?”. Asking in the negative allows for you to assume everything is fine unless they respond “the due date is tomorrow, please let me know if you need help to finish that on time”.
Perhaps it’s less polite, but if you’re dealing with people who rarely reply, it puts the burden on them and doesn’t leave you waiting for their reply.
Good catch. Yeah. “I’m assuming X. Let me know if this is not the case.”
What. Utter. Bullshit. Next you gonna tell people to post “Please do the needful”?
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This is great! I found this sorting by New and these tips are applicable for anyone (not only those suffering from ADHD) to have a more authoritative and confident tone to your digital communications.
Definitely agree. I posted it to YSK to reach more people.
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Yup, I tend to over-apologize, so this is perfect. It’s funny, I also posted this on YSK, and I don’t think the neurotypical people like the whole concept… 😅
It’s very common. I’ve lived in the UK where everyone does this a lot, but I’ve also lived in places like the Netherlands where people are far less likely to do this and are more honest.
I think on balance, it’s often better to be more direct. Instead of saying “Sorry, but would it be ok if I asked you to make a little less noise?” you simply say “I don’t like that you’re making that much noise.”
Of course, the person you’re talking to is free to do whatever they want with that information. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to feel the way you do about it, and voice that.
I mean, imagine saying “Sorry, but would it be ok if I don’t like jazz music?” No one does that. You say “I don’t like jazz very much.” and the person you’re talking to is free to agree or disagree. It’s ok. You don’t need permission to like/want/need things.
There’s a related therapeutic technique called non-violent communication. that’s also found wider use because it can help solve communication issues in non-therapeutic settings.
I also posted this on YSK, and I don’t think the neurotypical people like the whole concept… 😅
They may not, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It’s just as likely they’ve simply spent less time thinking about it, are unaware of their limitations, and are adverse to change.
I was a teacher for a while, and there’s this concept called “universal design for learning”. Teachers often deal with groups of learners who have individual learning differences. A class may have a kid with ADHD, a kid with autism, a kid with dyslexia, etc. Anyway, the gist of it is that a lot of the research suggest that stuff that makes it easier for the kid with a particular learning difference also makes things easier for the kids without learning difficulties. Like subtitles for the deaf can also be used by the hearing to better understand what’s being said.
So stuff that makes it easier for someone with ADHD is quite likely to also help someone without ADHD.
I can’t wait to forget all of these.
Jesus, I fit like half of those. Some of those are gonne hard to get rid of…
Could you elaborate on how ADHD affects writing e-mails, if you do not mind? I expected writing e-mails would be more comfortable for someone with ADHD because they can take their time with the e-mail. But then again, the time is limited and maybe this freedom to write in your own time means that you write a single e-mail way too long, rewriting it, … I do not know much about it. I would welcome some insights on the topic.
Nevertheless, I like some of these suggestions very much. I might try and see if I can improve some phrases in my e-mails with these as well.
One of the major reasons this applies to ADHD for me is the fact that I can fall behind on projects and emails and then feel the need to over-apologize and over-extend myself to fix the problem. Several of these tips address it. It’s more about boundaries than emails per se, if that makes sense… I mean, let me know if you have any questions :)
It makes perfect sense. Thank you for sharing. I can relate a bit with my own problems, so I know what you are talking about and can extrapolate further if I do not. Have you managed to create some mechanisms how to mitigate these issues? Something like forcing yourself to set hard limits on how much time you can allocate to any project in addition to the normal amount of time you would allocate for the task, limiting how many times you can use ‘sorry’ in a single e-mail, etc.?
This is an interesting and enlightening discussion under this post. I learned new things. For that, I am grateful.
I can’t speak for everyone, but the issues I have relate to writing way too much information. Sometimes if I get in the zone I write beautiful emails, but most of the time it is a rough experience, full of deleting and rewriting. This happens when the response can be easily condensed into a couple sentences. Anyway, that’s just my experience.
I see. That can be exhausting, I imagine. Thank you for sharing.
I have the same problem. I started using AI to rewrite my emails to make them more concise and to avoid long-winded responses.
That might actually be a great help. You give a few bullet points and the AI can generate them into sentences. Then we get into the joke that the recipient will use AI to summarize the e-mail into bullet points again, but in general, I think it could help with these types of problems in e-mail writing. Thank you for sharing.
