The email you have reread four times

Some emails are easy. Someone asks a question, you answer it, the thread closes.

Then there is the other kind. Eleven paragraphs, three people copied in, a date mentioned twice with different days of the week. You have read it four times. You are not confident you have read it once.

The email is not going to get shorter on its own. It has settled in.

Forward it with a question attached

Send it to just@askbirch.com and say what you need. The question does most of the work:

• “What do I actually need to do here?”
• “Is there a deadline in this, and when?”
• “Which part is for me and which part is for everyone else?”

A specific question gets a specific answer. “Thoughts?” gets you a summary. Then you have to read the summary, which is about where you came in.

Forward the email with its attachments still on it. Birch reads PDFs and images, so the agenda nobody opened and the photo of the sign-up sheet can come too.

Then keep going

The first answer rarely finishes the job. It does not yet know which parts you already understood and which part you were actually stuck on.

So tell it. Ask which meeting the second deadline belongs to. Say you only need the budget section. Ask for it shorter. Every reply continues the same conversation, so you never have to set the scene again.

When an answer turns into something you have to do, ask for a reminder and name the action. “Send Priya the revised numbers on Thursday” is a reminder. “Follow up” is a mood.

Start with the worst one

Not your tidiest email. The one you have been avoiding since Monday.

Forward it to just@askbirch.com and tell Birch what you need from it. There is no account to set up first; the email is the sign-up. Eleven paragraphs is a lot to carry around in your head on a Tuesday.