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Write a subject line that gets it opened

The email is written and the subject line still says "Quick question".

Longsubject-linesediting
Write subject lines for the email below.

Give me five options, each labelled with the strategy it uses: the ask, the deadline, the specific detail, the shared context, or the outcome.

Rules:
- Under 50 characters so it survives a phone preview.
- Front-load the words that matter. Nothing important after character 35.
- No "Quick question", no "Touching base", no "Following up", and nothing the body does not deliver on.
- If a decision or a date is involved, it goes in the subject.
- Say which one you would use and why, and which you would use if this were a second attempt after silence.

Then write the preview text, meaning the first line of the body, since it is read alongside the subject.

Email:

Making it yours

  • Paste your own material where the prompt asks for it. Everything above that line is instruction, not content.
  • Delete any rule that does not apply to you. A shorter prompt that fits beats a thorough one that does not.
  • If the answer comes back vague, add a line saying what you do not want. Constraints work better than encouragement.

Drafts and replies. Turning notes, long drafts and tangled threads into something short enough to read.

Related prompts

Cut this email in halfYou wrote five paragraphs and the ask is somewhere in paragraph four.Summarise this thread into a decisionForty replies deep and nobody can say what was actually agreed.Turn these bullets into a readable messageYou have rough notes and they need to become something a person will read.Halve this, keep every factA message that grew a paragraph at a time while you were writing it.Put the ask firstFour paragraphs of context and the request hiding at the bottom.Subject line for thisThe email is written and the subject line still says "Quick question".

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