Do you know important chats should be in an email?

Instant messaging (IM) is great for clarifying tasks or addressing questions that are holding you back from marking something as "done." It's also useful for sending reminders and pushing critical priorities—especially for those who tend to overlook emails. However, it should never replace an email.

The golden rule is never send a task on IM (e.g. Microsoft Teams)!

Dealing with external clients

During the course of an IM chat with a client or manager, an action or a piece of work may be required. It's highly important that such chats are copied from the chat and pasted into an email.

For example:

When you copy and paste a IM conversation into an email remember the following:

1. Who are you sending the email to? Is there any private information that should not be shared with the group?
2. Have you asked for permission to copy the IM conversation into an email? The other party may not want to share it in an email
3. Does the conversation add value to the email or can it be left out?
4. If you decide to copy the conversation then make sure you make it readable by snipping out just the important information
5. Don't forget to Cc relevant parties.

Dealing internally

If you get an internal IM that should be an email, don't simply convert it into in an email as above - be a standard watchdog and let the other person know that they should send emails instead of instant messages: