Email Write Order by David Sparks.
This is more of a reminder to me than you but I pass it along in case you are interested.
From the post:
I’ve always had a gripe with email application developers concerning the way they want us to write emails. When you go to write an email, the tab order is all out of whack.
The default write order starts out with you selecting the recipient for your message, which makes enough sense, but then everything goes off the rails. Next, it wants you to type in the subject line for a message you haven’t written yet. Because you haven’t written the message, there is a bit of mental friction between us getting our thoughts together and making a cogent subject line at that time, so we skip it or just leave it with whatever the mail client added (e.g., “re: re: re: re: re: That Thing”).
Next, the application wants you to write the body of your message. Rarely does the application even prompt you to add an attachment, which means about half the time you’ll forget to add an attachment. Because the default write order is all out of whack, so are the messages we often send using it. It makes a lot more sense to add attachments next and then write the body of the message before filling out the subject line and sending. I’ve got an alternative write order that makes a lot more sense.
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Suggestion: Try David’s alternative order for the next twenty or so emails you send.
Whether you bite on his $9.99 Email Field Guide or not, I think you will find the alternate order a useful exercise.
Enjoy!