How can I write emails faster?
Decide before you type, use a three-line structure for replies, turn on Gmail's shortcuts and templates, batch email into two sessions a day, and let an AI draft the routine replies in your voice so you edit instead of compose. Each of the twelve below saves minutes a day; together they save an hour.
1 to 4: decide before you type
- Name the one thing you want the reader to do before you write a word. If there is no action, consider not sending.
- Use the three-line reply: what you decided, why in one clause, what happens next. Most replies need nothing more.
- Answer questions in the order asked, with their words. It saves the reader a re-read and you a clarification email.
- Write the subject line last and make it the decision: "Approved: Q3 budget" beats "Re: Re: Budget".
5 to 8: Gmail settings most people skip
- Keyboard shortcuts (Settings, General, Keyboard shortcuts on):
ccompose,rreply,areply all,earchive,Ctrl/Cmd+Entersend. Learning five saves more than any app. - Templates (Settings, Advanced, Templates): save your five most repeated replies and insert them from the three-dot menu in compose.
- Smart Compose and Smart Reply (Settings, General): good for the sentence you were going to write anyway, bad when you accept a suggestion that is not what you meant.
- Schedule send: write the batch at 7am, land them at 9am. Nobody needs to know your hours.
9 to 10: change when, not how
- Batch: two sessions a day, 20 minutes each. Email written in context switches takes twice as long and reads worse.
- Reply to the thread, not the person. Open the thread, read the last message only, reply. Reading the whole history is usually unnecessary.
11: AI that drafts in your voice
The biggest saving is not typing faster; it is starting from a draft instead of a blank box. The trap is that most AI drafts sound like AI, so you spend the saved time rewriting.
Two kinds of tool solve this differently. Gemini in Gmail drafts from a prompt you type in the compose box, which is fast for a one-off. Momo AI builds a style profile from up to 25 of your own sent emails and drafts the reply before you open the thread, saving it to Gmail Drafts. You edit two words and send. AI that writes emails in your voice explains how the profile works and what it stores.
12: stop writing the ones that don't need writing
A third of the emails you write are chasers and scheduling. "Did you get a chance to look?" and "Does Tuesday at 3 work?" Those two can be removed entirely: follow-up tracking writes the chaser when a thread goes quiet, and scheduling by email offers free slots and books the pick. You approve each with a tap. The time saved is not per email; it is the emails you never had to write.
