The best time to write emails is in the morning.
Typos can be embarrassing and can confuse the meaning of your emails, blog content and social media posts. But content posted online can easily be corrected when you discover the mistakes. Emails, however, are a one and done proposition. After you send them, there's no getting them back to fix pesky errors. So what's the best time to write emails?
According to Grammarly, a popular proofreading app used by many people worldwide, you can reduce the risk of mistakes in your emails by doing one simple thing- write them early in the morning.
If you're a night owl who likes to tackle email after everything else is done, you might think early morning is the time of day you're most likely to make mistakes. But after analyzing a billion words of proofread materials run through their app, the staff at Grammarly determined that the best time to write emails was early. In fact, people who wrote emails between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. made 18% percent fewer mistakes . Getting emails out of the way first thing in the morning might help you make fewer errors and send more professional business communications.
And 4 More Ways to Improve your Business and Marketing Communications while we're at it:
- Spelling. Double-check your spelling. Spelling errors account for over half of all mistakes. Automated spell-check won't catch every spelling error, but it will catch some and leave fewer for you to find on your own.
- Social Media. Take extra care with social media posts. According to Grammarly's data, social media posts contain the highest percentage of errors. Emails analyzed in their app average about 13.5 errors per 100 words, and blog posts average about 7.9 errors. Social media posts average a whopping 39 mistakes per 100 words. While some of these may be because of the slang and shorthand often used on social media, fewer mistakes make posts clearer and will help you reach your audience better.
- Watch Your Apostrophes. Using the wrong word is a common problem in written communication, and the top mistake of this variety is misuse of apostrophes. Look carefully at words like its/it's, lets/let's and other words that only sometimes take an apostrophe to be sure you're using the right form. A spellcheck won't catch these, but a grammar checker in your word processor or an app like Grammarly should most of the time.
- Similar Words: Words most often interchanged are their/there, to/too, of/off, every day/everyday and then/than. People who write their emails and content at night make 66% more errors involving similar words than those who do their writing early, so if you're a night writer, pay special attention to these.
Maybe you can't bring yourself to write emails before 8 in the morning. By double-checking for some of the most common problems above, you can eliminate more errors and make your business writings as professional and clear as possible.