Fingers Faster Than Your Brain?

All of us have done it.   Perhaps we are distracted by a phone call.  Perhaps we are upset.  Perhaps we just typed the wrong address.  There is nothing like the sinking feeling of sending an inappropriate or inflammatory email to someone and wanting dearly to take it back.   Last week Gmail announced that it will offer a way to cancel the delivery of an email you sent.  When you send an email within Gmail, a large button with the word “UNSEND” will appear on your screen.  If you click on that button within 30 seconds your email delivery will be cancelled.

While this feature is certainly an improvement it may not solve all the issues of errant emails.   I have a few hints for keeping you from embarrassment or even worse when the wrong or inappropriate missive is sent.

Many of us write the address of the person or persons the email is to be sent before we begin writing the actual content.  This makes perfect sense as the address line is most often the first line that appears on your screen.  I suggest that you leave that line blank and don’t fill it in until you are ready to send.  I know that I am often in a hurry and have sent emails with typos, wrong dates and times and other errors by not paying attention and pressing the wrong key.  If there is no name in the header, the email will not be sent.  So write the email, make your corrections and changes and then, and only then, fill in the email address or addresses of the people who are to get the message.

For those times when you are angry or upset, go ahead and write the email but instead of sending it, file it in your drafts and come back to it in an hour or so and re-read it.  You will be surprised how often you decide not to send it.  Of course be sure also to use my other hint and leave the addressee line blank until you really decide to send it.  These hints go for text messages as well.  Because we are often distracted when texting some really strange messages get sent in error.

Be very careful of the “autofill” and “auto correct” functions that are built into many email programs.  You know what you wanted to write but you may not have written what you wanted once the computer decides to “help.”  Read you email out loud before sending.

Finally, when forwarding an email be sure that all the information in the email is appropriate for all who will get the forwarded message.  The email you received may have been forwarded to you by someone else.  Emails, especially in some business settings, tend to be appended to other emails and often the subject of the current iteration has nothing to do with earlier iterations.

So make sure you enlarge your train before dressing “send.” Damn autocorrect!