Of course, this is mostly common sense. Unfortunately, common sense is often in short supply when it comes to email. If you’re looking for general rules, Please consider the following:

Don’t deliver tough messages in email unless absolutely necessary.

When you’re writing an email, spend as much time considering how it will be received as you spend deciding what you want to say.

If you don’t mean it, don’t send it.

Don’t open suspicious attachments. Because of the threat of viruses, we all must be more careful about opening email attachments.

Don’t automatically click Reply All. If someone sends a note addressed to a large group, stop and think before you click Reply All. Maybe you need to take your discussion with the original sender offline. If the whole group doesn’t need your input, don’t waste their time and inbox space.

Use discretion when sending to groups. Before you send a note to a group named "Goer Manufacturing or Goer East or Goer West", ask yourself if you really need to ping everybody in the organization. Maybe you need to create an address group that’s just for your teammates or the people in your business unit. Of course there will be times when it’s appropriate to send something to everyone, but you should use that address group sparingly.

If you don’t have anything to say, don’t reply. Here’s a classic email abuse. Say there’s a legitimate need to send a note to the whole company: Someone sends out a note that reads, "The Office installation disks are missing. If you have them, please return them immediately." If you don’t have the disks, don’t reply. Don’t write, "I don’t have them, sorry." That’s a waste of your time, and it wastes the time of the person to whom you’re replying.

Don’t forward chain email letters. Folks, I really hate to burst the bubbles of those of you who get fooled by email scams. But when you get one of those notes that reads “please forward to 10 people to keep the chain going” because some kid somewhere is collecting names or because someone wants to win a trip to Disneyland, delete it! It’s a scam. A ruse. An insult to your intelligence. A waste of company time and resources. Don’t embarrass yourself in front of your co-workers by forwarding that spam.

Don’t forward top-10 lists and jokes. I love a good joke as much as the next person, but I don’t need my inbox filled with jokes I’ve already heard or read. If you think you’ve got a funny joke or list, print it and post it on your door. I’ll read it when I walk by. Don’t send it to me, and don’t forward it to everyone in the company.

Watch your personal email traffic. It’s hard to define how much personal email is “too much” like it’s hard to put a handle on how many personal phone calls are acceptable. If you’re getting distracted by too much personal email at work, it may be time to get a computer and an email account at home.

Ask your system administrator about allowable attachments. Some email system administrators don’t want you to send attachments over a certain size, so they put a 6-Meg cap on files you send over the network. If your job requires that you send or receive large files, make sure it’s okay with your system administrator.

If you need a good email policy, we would be pleased to assist. Of course, this is mostly common sense. Unfortunately, common sense is often in short supply when it comes to email. If you are looking for general rules, Please consider the following:

Don’t deliver tough messages in email unless absolutely necessary.

When you’re writing an email, spend as much time considering how it will be received as you spend deciding what you want to say.

If you don’t mean it, don’t send it.

Don’t open suspicious attachments. Because of the threat of viruses, we all must be more careful about opening email attachments.