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Project email that can be found a year later

By Review.LivePublished 3 min readHow we write

At 18:30 the superintendent replies to a thread titled "Re: tomorrow". His email confirms a sleeve location on level 3, asks about Thursday's crane lift and mentions a damaged stair door frame. Three topics under a subject about none of them: in six months nobody will find them.

Hands in a checked shirt type on a laptop at a desk by a window, a mail list open on the screen.
Photo: Burst on Unsplash

Start every subject line with the job number, the area and the topic; keep each message to one topic; put the decision or request in the first two lines; and file it in the project, not your inbox. Email becomes the job's record whether you plan it or not; it helps only if someone can find it and read it without the thread around it. Provincial records guidance agrees: Prince Edward Island's archives ask for a specific, descriptive subject line, one topic per email and a new thread when the topic changes, and Saskatchewan's says to keep email with the other records of the same activity.

Write it to be found

  1. Build the subject line the same way every time: job number, area, topic and, where it helps, the kind of message — "3207 | L2 lounge | ceiling height | decision".
  2. Keep to one topic. When a reply turns to something new, start a new email.
  3. Put the point first: the decision, who made it and when, or the request and the date you need an answer.
  4. Name documents exactly, by sheet and revision or by number, and attach them.
  5. Name each person's action, and copy only people who need to know.
  6. File it in the project the same day, sent and received.

Confirming a spoken instruction has its own method in verbal instructions in writing; some messages should not be email at all: see choosing the channel.

Common mistakes

  • Replying in an old thread, burying a new decision under the old subject.
  • Subject lines like "Question", "Update" or "Tomorrow".
  • Forwarding a long thread with "see below" and no summary.
  • Keeping the only copy in one person's mailbox.

Checklist

Before you press send

  • Subject: job number, area, topic, kind of message
  • One topic only
  • The decision or request in the first two lines
  • Documents named exactly and attached
  • Each person's action named
  • Filed in the project the same day

Check your understanding

A thread titled "3207 | L3 corridor | sprinkler heads" turns to the corridor's paint colour. What do you do, and why?

Show the answer
Start a new email with its own subject for the paint colour, and say so in the old thread. Otherwise the colour decision is filed under sprinkler heads, and a search for paint in that corridor will miss it.

Sources

  1. Email Management Guide (March 2022)Public Archives and Records Office, Government of Prince Edward Island · Prince Edward Island, Canada (guidance for provincial public bodies; shown as an example of good practice) · accessed
  2. Email Management Guidelines (effective 2016)Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, Information Management Unit · Saskatchewan, Canada (guidance for government institutions; shown as an example of good practice) · accessed

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