How To End Your Emails...While Still Maintaining Your Humanity

pixabay.com

In a relatively short period of time, email has become the central communication tool for businesses across the world, eliminating the telex, practically killing off the fax and making letter writing a quaint, romantic idea. 

I work with email every single day.  All told, I probably deal with several hundred emails of varying degrees of importance on a daily basis. My goal with each one is to get my message across quickly and succinctly, while maintaining some level of my personality.

In other words, trying not to come across as a robot.

Which is why I've always struggled with how best to close off emails. While it doesn't take the place of the actual email content, it is the last thing that the receiver reads and can, if done right, help set the right tone or emphasis in his or her mind.

My mainstays - probably like yours - are "Thanks" and "Best". Nice, reasonably personable, non-threatening. But what if don't have something to thank someone for? What if I want to be a bit more thoughtful? What if I want to tailor my sentiment? 

In those cases, I struggle. I've tried "Great seeing you!" if I met them, or "I really appreciate your help!" or some other closing sentence that is reflective of my engagement with that individual. But often, I'm just back to "Thanks" and "Best".

Well, all that is about to change - for me and for you. I recently read a great article on how to close out your emails - and the author has given us 70 different ideas to consider.

ideas ranging from the formal (Best wishes, Best regards) to the friendly (Enjoy your Thursday, Talk soon) to the appreciative (Thanks so much, With gratitude) to the funny (Peace out, Don't stop believin').

Not all of them will work all of the time, but there's some great food for thought - certainly enough to spice up your emails (starting from a few minutes from now once you've read the article).

So mediocre email closers everywhere (like me), consider this a gift from the Gods. (Well, maybe not the Gods, but certainly the author of the piece.) May your emails flourish and bring you much humanity.

Anonymously, 

Omer

P.S. Please don't ever send me emails closing with "Happy Friday", "Warm Regards" or "Sincerely"....