Email is a blessing for online projects, but it demands dicipline. If you have something you need to communicate, please put a clue in the subject. If you have more then one thing don’t make an general subject and put it all into the same mail. Split it up into two mails with a specific subject.

If your main workplace is online you have a totally different way of using and reading email than the average office based Joe. The subject line is ment as a “summary” of the content. The subjectline is used to scan status for projects and if you keep an eye on the inbox you can overlook your projects in a good way without having to read every mail as it drops-in.

The inbox is the base for which your to-do/status list is updated from.
I’m working with a project manager that is fantastic in every way but the email communication. She has the habit of producing subjects like “Project A, “More on Project A”, “Project A”, “Project A”, “Project A again”, “Project A again”, “Project A”, “Project A”, “Project A” … it’s a killer trying to follow the progress and even worse trying to back track stuff.

So if you want to be more productive and deliver more safely, use the subject with discipline and teach your clients to do the same.

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