You will produce reusable templates for the five messages you send most often at work.
Count how many times last week you wrote some version of "could you send me", "just following up on", or "sorry, this will be late". For most people it's a handful of messages, written again from scratch each time, often in a hurry and often with the request buried. A template fixes the structure once, so the next time you only fill in the gaps.
This exercise takes about twenty-five minutes. You will write five templates, each built point first, and try them on real messages this week.
Look through your sent emails and chats from the last two weeks and note the messages you send again and again. For most people, five types cover a large share of their writing:
A request for something: a file, a figure, an approval, a decision. A follow-up on a request that hasn't been answered. A handover, when you pass work to someone else for leave or a change of role. A delay notice, when something you promised will be late. A meeting request, with the purpose and the time needed.
If your own five are different, use yours. A nurse might need a shift-swap request and a handover note. A bank analyst might need a data request and a sign-off chaser. The point is to template what you actually send.
Write each template with the request or main message in the first line, the reason second, and the detail after. Put square brackets around every gap you will fill in: names, dates, the ask, the reason.
Two rules keep templates useful. Every template must have a slot for a deadline, because the most common failure in a request is a missing date. And every template must read as a normal message once the gaps are filled. If it sounds like a form letter, people will treat it like one.
Templates grow. Each time you use one, you'll be tempted to add a line for the situation you just had, and after a month it's a page long. Set a limit of 120 words now, gaps included. When a real message needs more, type the extra into that one message and leave the template as it was.
Ahmad is an operations executive at a freight forwarder. Here are two of his five templates, with the gaps in brackets.
Request:
"Hi [name], could you [specific ask] by [day and time]? I need it to [reason or next step]. [One line of detail: which file, which shipment, which version.] If someone else handles this, could you let me know who? Thanks."
Delay notice:
"Hi [name], [deliverable] will be late. I can now send it by [new date], instead of [original date]. The reason is [one line]. [What I have done or what I need from you, if anything.] [Effect on anything downstream, if any.] Sorry for the change."
Here is the delay notice filled in for a real case:
"Hi Ms Chua, the monthly freight cost report will be late. I can now send it by Wednesday 3pm, instead of Monday. The reason is that two carriers sent their invoices late this month. I have chased both and expect them tomorrow. Nothing else is affected, as the finance review is on Thursday. Sorry for the change."
It took Ahmad two minutes to fill in, and Ms Chua knows from the first sentence what happened and from the second what to expect. His follow-up template opens with "I'm following up on my message of [date] about [topic]" and avoids "gentle reminder", for the reasons in lesson 2.3. His handover template lists open items as [item, status, next step, contact], one line each.
Use each template on a real situation this week. As you fill it in, notice which gaps you left blank and which lines you deleted because they didn't fit. Those are lines to cut from the template. Notice also what you had to add every time, which might belong in the template after all.
Ahmad found that his meeting request template had a line for "background", which he deleted every time because the background was in the email thread already. He cut it. He also found he kept adding "this will take 15 minutes" to meeting requests, so he added a [duration] gap.
Keep the five templates in one place you can reach quickly: a note on your phone, a document pinned to your desktop, or saved replies in your email program if it has them. A template you have to search for won't get used.
A finished set is five short templates in one place, each with the point on top and a slot for the deadline. Most people find that two or three of the five end up doing most of the work, and those are the ones worth polishing over the next few weeks while the others stay rough. The real test is a week of use, which is where the activity below picks up.
Write the five templates in one document and use at least two of them on real messages before the end of the week.
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