TJ Walker shows how vague emails damage your reputation by making people work to understand what you want. He rewrites messy messages to include a clear request, relevant context, and a deadline. The rule: give people what they need to act, or they'll think you're hard to work with.
Chapters
Ultimize. Here's something you can apply today that will instantly improve how people respond to you. Before you hit send, look at your message and ask one question: is it obvious what I want the other person to do next? If the answer is no, well then fix it, because one of the biggest etiquette mistakes in modern work is this: making other people do unnecessary work just to understand you. Let me give you a specific example. You send an email that says, let me know your thoughts. Well, on what? By when? In what format? You think you're being polite and open-ended because you're concise. Well, what you're actually doing is creating ambiguity. Now the other person has to think, what exactly is being asked of me? Is this urgent? Do I need to respond now or later? That's friction. Now compare that to this message: Could you let me know by Thursday if you approve Option A or prefer Option B? Now we have something clear. It's specific. It's easy to act on. That's etiquette, not just being polite, being clear in a way that respects the other person's time. Here's another common situation. You send a message with no context. Can you review this? Attached is a document. No explanation, no background, no indication of what matters. Now the other person has to open it, figure out what it is, and guess what you care about. That's work, and people remember who makes them work. Now compare that to this. 'Could you review the pricing section on page 3 and let me know if the assumptions look correct?' Okay, that's much better. Now they know exactly where to focus. That's professional. That's respecting the other person's time. Here's another subtle one: tone. You send a very short message, 'Need this today.' You think you're being efficient. Depending on the relationship, That can feel abrupt or even rude. Now compare that to this: Could you send this over today? I need it for a 4 PM meeting. Same urgency, very different feeling. And that feeling matters because etiquette is not just about what you say, it's about how it lands. Here's another example that happens all the time. You reply to an email thread, but you don't include the key people who were originally copied, or you add new people without any explanation. Now others are confused. Who needs to be involved? Why was someone added? Why was someone removed? These are small details, but they create uncertainty, and uncertainty makes people uncomfortable. Now let's connect this to something bigger. There have been very public situations where poorly written internal messages— emails, chats, quick comments— were shared more broadly and ended up damaging reputations, not because the person intended harm, but because the tone, the wording, or lack of context made them look careless or insensitive. That's the environment we're in. Anything you write can travel, so modern etiquette means writing in a way that's clear, respectful, and easy to understand even outside the immediate moment. Here's the standard to aim for: Clear request, clear context, clear next step. If you do that consistently, people will experience you as easy to work with, and that's one of the strongest professional signals you can send, because the person who makes communication easier becomes the person everyone else wants to work with.
