Got told to stop saying 'just' in my emails and it actually fixed my workflow

My supervisor at the Ace Hardware corporate office said I was undermining myself by writing 'just checking in' or 'just wanted to follow up' constantly. I changed to direct requests like 'please review the inventory numbers by Friday' and my response rate went from maybe 30% to closer to 70%. Has anyone else had a tiny word change do that much heavy lifting?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamie_smith27d ago

Thirty percent response rate? I'd have figured a guy at Ace Hardware could get people to show up if he just yelled "SALE" in the lumber aisle. Glad the word swap worked better than my usual approach of passive-aggressive footnotes in red ink.

grant.sam26d ago

Wait did your friend try the same thing and get ignored or something?

hayden70925d ago

Honestly the passive-aggressive red ink thing killed me. I used to try that with my old roommate about dishes and it just made everyone mad. It's like people tune out that stuff on instinct. But swapping out one word for another that's a little less aggressive? That actually changes the whole vibe. It's wild how small tweaks can get way better results than yelling or snide notes.