--- title: 9 Rules For Emailing From Google Exec Eric Schmidt description: In a book out this week, Google Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt shares 9 insightful rules for emailing like a professional. canonical: https://time.com/3425368/google-email-rules/ author: Eric Schmidt article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-24T19:19:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:43:58.312Z article:section: Ideas og:title: These Are Google Exec Eric Schmidt's 9 Rules of Email og:description: Clean out your inbox constantly. og:url: https://time.com/3425368/google-email-rules/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cef4f5237374a43/6986a54fe8524b73dc604e6f/google.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Signage is displayed outside the Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, California, on Oct. 13, 2010. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These Are Google Exec Eric Schmidt's 9 Rules of Email twitter:description: Clean out your inbox constantly. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cef4f5237374a43/6986a54fe8524b73dc604e6f/google.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 9 Rules For Emailing From Google Exec Eric Schmidt > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: How Google Makes its Doodles [Watch (HLS stream): How Google Makes its Doodles](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8) (3:23)  _Published 2018-07-07. Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as_ by [Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg](https://time.com/author/eric-schmidt/) ## Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg Schmidt is the former CEO of Google, CEO of Relativity Space, and the co-founder of Schmidt Sciences. Sep 24, 2014 7:19 PM UTC  Signage is displayed outside the Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, California, on Oct. 13, 2010. Signage is displayed outside the Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, California, on Oct. 13, 2010. Bloomberg/Getty Images by [Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg](https://time.com/author/eric-schmidt/) ## Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg Schmidt is the former CEO of Google, CEO of Relativity Space, and the co-founder of Schmidt Sciences. Sep 24, 2014 7:19 PM UTC Communication in the Internet Century usually means using email, and email, despite being remarkably useful and powerful, often inspires momentous dread in otherwise optimistic, happy humans. Here are our personal rules for mitigating that sense of foreboding:  Cover of 'How Google Works,' by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg How \[f500link\]Google\[/f500link\] Works **1.** **Respond quickly.** There are people who can be relied upon to respond promptly to emails, and those who can’t. Strive to be one of the former. Most of the best—and busiest—people we know act quickly on their emails, not just to us or to a select few senders, but to everyone. Being responsive sets up a positive communications feedback loop whereby your team and colleagues will be more likely to include you in important discussions and decisions, and being responsive to everyone reinforces the flat, meritocratic culture you are trying to establish. These responses can be quite short—“got it” is a favorite of ours. And when you are confident in your ability to respond quickly, you can tell people exactly what a non-response means. In our case it’s usually “got it and proceed.” Which is better than what a non-response means from most people: “I’m overwhelmed and don’t know when or if I’ll get to your note, so if you needed my feedback you’ll just have to wait in limbo a while longer. Plus I don’t like you.” **2.** **When writing an email, every word matters, and useless prose doesn’t. Be crisp in your delivery.** If you are describing a problem, define it clearly. Doing this well requires more time, not less. You have to write a draft then go through it and eliminate any words that aren’t necessary. Think about the late novelist Elmore Leonard’s response to a question about his success as a writer: “I leave out the parts that people skip.” Most emails are full of stuff that people can skip. ### PHOTOS: Inside Google’s New York City Office  A subway themed conference room where Googlers can video conference with other Google offices around the world. Eric Laignel—Google  A lounge and workspace in Google's Chelsea Market office where employees can get together for a meeting or relax on a lounge chair. Eric Laignel—Google  Steel slides connect Google's two story lounge. Eric Laignel—Google  A green themed micro kitchen emphasizes Google's commitment to sustainability. Eric Laignel—Google  Google's apartment themed conference room for those looking to “work from home” at work. Eric Laignel—Google  Google's build-your-own desks that allow employees to completely customize their workspaces. Eric Laignel—Google  Water tower seating in Google's aptly named Water Tower Cafe, one of five cafes at Google's New York offices that serve free food. Eric Laignel—Google  The Broadway themed conference rooms on Google's New York City-themed floor. Eric Laignel—Google  A bookcase turns to reveal one of three "secret rooms" in Google's library. Eric Laignel—Google  Google New York's library, complete with books donated by employees. Eric Laignel—Google  The Google bridge across 16th street in New York City. Eric Laignel—Google **3.** **Clean out your inbox constantly.** How much time do you spend looking at your inbox, just trying to decide which email to answer next? How much time do you spend opening and reading emails that you have already read? Any time you spend thinking about which items in your inbox you should attack next is a waste of time. Same with any time you spend rereading a message that you have already read (and failed to act upon). When you open a new message, you have a few options: Read enough of it to realize that you don’t need to read it, read it and act right away, read it and act later, or read it later (worth reading but not urgent and too long to read at the moment). Choose among these options right away, with a strong bias toward the first two. Remember the old OHIO acronym: Only Hold It Once. If you read the note and know what needs doing, do it right away. Otherwise you are dooming yourself to rereading it, which is 100 percent wasted time. If you do this well, then your inbox becomes a to‑do list of only the complex issues, things that require deeper thought (label these emails “take action,” or in Gmail mark them as starred), with a few “to read” items that you can take care of later. To make sure that the bloat doesn’t simply transfer from your inbox to your “take action” folder, you must clean out the action items every day. This is a good evening activity. Zero items is the goal, but anything less than five is reasonable. Otherwise you will waste time later trying to figure out which of the long list of things to look at. **4.** **Handle email in LIFO order (Last In First Out). Sometimes the older stuff gets taken care of by someone else.** **5.** **Remember, you’re a router.** When you get a note with useful information, consider who else would find it useful. At the end of the day, make a mental pass through the mail you received and ask yourself, “What should I have forwarded but didn’t?” **6.** **When you use the bcc (blind copy) feature, ask yourself why.** The answer is almost always that you are trying to hide something, which is counterproductive and potentially knavish in a transparent culture. When that is your answer, copy the person openly or don’t copy them at all. The only time we recommend using the bcc feature is when you are removing someone from an email thread. When you “reply all” to a lengthy series of emails, move the people who are no longer relevant to the thread to the bcc field, and state in the text of the note that you are doing this. They will be relieved to have one less irrelevant note cluttering up their inbox. **7.** **Don’t yell.** If you need to yell, do it in person. It is FAR TOO EASY to do it electronically. **8.** **Make it easy to follow up on requests.** When you send a note to someone with an action item that you want to track, copy yourself, then label the note “follow up.” That makes it easy to find and follow up on the things that haven’t been done; just resend the original note with a new intro asking “Is this done?” **9.** **Help your future self search for stuff. If you get something you think you may want to recall later, forward it to yourself along with a few keywords that describe its content.** Think to yourself, How will I search for this later? Then, when you search for it later, you’ll probably use those same search terms. This isn’t just handy for emails, but important documents too. Jonathan scans his family’s passports, licenses, and health insurance cards and emails them to himself along with descriptive keywords. Should any of those things go missing during a trip, the copies are easy to retrieve from any browsers. _Excerpted from the book_ [_HOW GOOGLE WORKS_](http://www.amazon.com/How-Google-Works-Eric-Schmidt-ebook/dp/B00HUU13Y0/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1411586241&sr=1-1&keywords=how+google+works/?tag=timecom-20) _by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, with Alan Eagle. © 2014 by Google, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved._ _Read next:_ [_11 Google Tricks That Will Change the Way You Search_](http://time.com/3581399/google-search/?xid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ### See Google Doodles Through the Years  Aug. 26, 2015 For the 70th anniversary of La Tomatina. Google  May 26, 2015 In celebration of the 64th birthday of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. Google  March 31, 2015 Honoring the 126th anniversary of the public opening of the Eiffel Tower. Google  Mar. 20, 2015 To celebrate the start of spring and the vernal equinox, Google created a stop-motion animation of flowers in bloom. Google  Nov. 12, 2014 For the landing of the Philae lander, the first spacecraft on a moving comet, Google created a gyrating lander with passing stars. Google  Sept. 9, 2014 For Tolstoy's 186th birthday, the Google Doodle team created an appropriately long click-through doodle. Google  May 27, 2014 For the Rachel Louise Carson doodle, the team surrounded her with birds and sea creatures to celebrate her 107th birthday. Google  May 4 2014 For Audrey Hepburn's 85th birthday, the doodle team adapted an image from a 1956 black and white photograph taken by Yousuf Karsh. Google  June 9, 2011 The doodlers came up with the idea of a playable logo, then pegged it to guitar innovator Les Paul's 96th birthday. Turning on composer mode allows you to create songs that you can share online. Google  March 24, 2011 The Harry Houdini doodle was created in the style of the old posters advertising the death-defying magician. Google  Nov. 25, 2010 Chef Ina Garten prepared this Thanksgiving feast, which Google photographed. If you clicked on a dish, her recipe appeared. Google  May 7, 2010 Google asked the San Francisco Ballet to pose and twirl to re-create Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Google  Oct. 7, 2009 Scan the doodle that marks the first patent for the bar code and you'll decode Google embedded within. Google  March 2, 2009 The doodlers arranged classic Dr. Seuss characters, like the Cat in the Hat and the Grinch, to form the logo's letters. Google  Jan. 28, 2009 There was no other way to honor abstract artist Jackson Pollack than with a chaotic drip painting. Google  Jan. 19, 2009 Guest artist Shepard Fairey (famed for his Obama HOPE poster) did a sketch for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Google  Jan. 28, 2008 Early on, Google used Lego blocks as casing for hard disks. Later it feted Lego's 50th anniversary. Google  April 22, 2007 A melting iceberg for Earth Day is one of many eco-minded doodles the team has created. Google  Jan. 4, 2006 Enter the world of out-there doodles — Google in braille. Only problem: you can't feel it. Google  March 30, 2005 The Van Gogh doodle appeared in an era when doodles began to get more ambitious, and it's one of the doodlers' best interpretations of a specific painter. Google  Aug. 13, 2003 Early doodles of famous folk tended to be simple, like this silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock. Google  March 14, 2003 The early doodles were often simple but playful, like this mustachioed drawing of Albert Einstein to celebrate his birthday. Google  Nov. 14, 2001 Google's first doodler, Dennis Hwang, gave the logo an Impressionist look for Claude Monet's birthday. Google  Aug. 30, 1998 When employees left for the Burning Man festival, the Google logo became a cryptic BE BACK LATER sign. "There was no master plan for doodles at that point," says doodler-in-chief Ryan Germick. Google ## Transcript >> The Doodle team was able to meet Ira Glass from This American Life, and he was just meeting us for fun. I guess, I'm not even sure why he was here, but we talked about potentially collaborating and they thought that it'd be fun to collaborate with us on Valentine's Day, so I took the lead on this project. >> We do Valentine's Day pretty much every year, and we've done your typical like lovebirds and, you know, flowers and things like that. But Ira and his team are awesome. >> They were able to pull stories that they have collected over the years, they've recorded new stories for us, and they're all about love in all different respects of the word. They sent us maybe 8 or 10 stories and they're all really fun and really sweet. >> The stories run the [ unk ]. There is a story about middle school love. >> I was in the cafeteria, just got on a drink of root beer and she walks up to me. >> There is a story about a new bride who's in doubt that she made a mistake. >> My husband, me and I, we're just so worried, his face I could tell. I said, " Where he could be ," you know, and I-- and I called the police because I thought he got lost or something happened. >> When I first got the audio from Ira, my co- worker and I listened to it together and we wrote down bullet points of where we wanted to have a little drawing come up. >> One of my favorite stories, it involves middle schoolers. We're titling it, " Puppy Love" so true to the title, I just-- I just drew everyone as a dog. >> Each stories are-- containing a little candy heart. >> And when you click on it, the heart will flip, the audio will play and you will also see the images that we've drawn to accompany the phrases. So, now we are all going to brainstorms together because we need the creative side and we also need the technical side to tell us what is possible and what isn't possible. For this one, it's a pretty conservative on the interactive side, because we didn't want to overshadow the audio. When I first started, they were no engineers on the team, we only did static doodles, but since then, we've started doing more animated stuff, more interactive work, and for that we needed a dedicated team. >> Some of our most like ambitious to those have come from engineers that are just incredibly talented and spare similar time for our projects. >> Sometimes the illustrators will come up with an idea that is way too wacky and just not possible yet. The technology hasn't been invented, but sometimes we're too conservative and it's great to have the engineers there to tell us that we can actually be way wackier with our ideas. The relationship with my engineer on this was to just keep my files size at a reasonable capacity, I was getting a little bit ambitious with how many frames I wanted to draw and my engineers said, " Hey, you need to double it ." >> We tried to do as many doodles as we possibly can. We're a pretty small team, relative to how many audiences are out there [ unk ], but yeah, we-- you never know what you're gonna get. 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