No matter what the haters say, email is still the most efficient form of business correspondence. I mean, cent-for-cent, is there anything that come even close?

The problem with email is, you don’t know how you sound to the receiver. Or the receiver is reading your message in a totally different way that what you would’ve sounded in person. This is the tricky part. See, emoticons and exclamation points can only take you so far (especially in a business email), and in fact, sometimes formal business language can start to sound, well, negative without context.

Fear not. Here are your email New Year’s Resolutions in order to make them sound as pleasant as you are.

Emphasize What’s Good

Generally speaking, choice of words add up to the tone of your communications. And when you consistently choose negative words and phrases, your emails will sound terse, condescending, or angry. If you haven’t read The Secret, you should. The gist is, negative ideas are a no-no (such as the very sentence before this). In other words, write only in the positive.

Negativity is never good and always sends out negative vibes. Even if you feel negative about a situation, you can still make an effort to turn your emails into more positive messages — which usually get better responses.

Related: 7 Amazing Ways “Social Media” Can Build Your Business Email Subscribers

Words like cannot, damage, do not, error, fail, impossible, little value, loss, mistake, not, problem, refuse, stop, unable to, unfortunately, escalation, urgent, never, inability and unsound all have a strong negative connotation.

Take this sentence for example:

Unfortunately, it looks impossible to finish the project on time because of the problems some people are causing with submitting their work late.

That’s a lot of negative words for one sentence. But you could easily convey the same information in a more positive way, like this:

Can everyone turn in their portion of the project by Thursday so that we can complete the work on time and hit the deadline.

As you can see, it’s all about the words you choose that conveys your tone. If the boss in the Wall Street Journal example above had even responded with, “Thank you!” instead of “Noted,” his employee probably would not have worried whether she had done a good job.

Try to phrase your message using more positive terms like benefit, it is best to, issue, matter, progress, success and valuable.

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Dos and Don’ts

An easy way to fall into the negativity trap is to start listing out things people shouldn’t do. Don’t leave uneaten food in the office refrigerator. Don’t be late to the meeting. Even saying “don’t forget” is more negative than saying “remember.”

Instead of telling others what not to do, try telling them what they should do instead. Please take your lunches home at the end of the day. Please arrive for the meeting five minutes early.

People are much more likely to comply with a positive request than a negative complaint on their behavior.

When in doubt, spell it out.

If you find that people frequently misinterpret your emails, you might need to be more explicit. There’s no harm in actually saying how you feel when communicating with colleagues, especially those with whom you have a good relationship.

Related: 7 Stats That Proves Email Marketing Is Still The MOST Reliable Channel [INFOGRAPHIC]

For example, rather than using terse, negative language in an email about project scheduling because you’re sick of the software you have to use to schedule meetings, you might come out and say, “This scheduling system is frustrating to me, but it looks like we can meet on Friday…”

That way, the recipient can understand that you’re feeling negative about something other than him.

Final Thoughts

Misunderstandings, quarrels, even wars are sometimes started by the wrong use of words and the way we deliver them. We can minimize the chances of them happening by always trying to sound positive, pleasant, and friendly in our correspondence.

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