It took a LinkedIn exchange to motivate me to share this appeal for enhanced email etiquette.  One of my connections, an entrepreneur in the housewares industry, recently posted the following: “Should the death penalty be applicable to people that don't hit “reply all” on emails. Let's discuss.” I responded, “No. Maybe the Congressional Medal of Honor, though.” A long-standing itch had been scratched!

As an experienced in-house generalist of a global manufacturing company who services clients across administrative, operations and commercial functions, I receive and send scores of emails every day. Sometimes I use the number of emails in my inbox as a quasi-barometer of how busy things are.

There is frequently a great deal of clutter in my inbox, and I have no doubt I am often guilty of perpetuating clutter in the inboxes of my colleagues. There is too much email noise, if not nuisance, in the course of our busy and important jobs. While the onus is on each of us to best navigate our inbox, and to practice what I'm about to (gently) preach, it is inescapable that there are prevalent emailing habits worth eliminating in order to drive more efficient and recipient-friendly utilization of this indispensable office tool. I am committing to do this for the benefit of my colleagues, and I urge you to join me. It is nothing short of sound business communication practice.

There are two prevalent email misbehaviors most of us endure, and perpetuate, regularly. In shining this needed light, I aim to reduce the number of emails in our inboxes, while raising the percentage of those that are far easier to discern. Adhering to this guidance will make for better email behavior, where only those who ought to be receiving an email do so and the gist of the emails they receive is clear on its face.

• Misbehavior No. 1: The gratuitous reply to all

Several years ago, I participated in small group workshops led by an outside consultant that examined the company's culture. In one session I attended, the facilitator asked what things could be done to improve the culture at our company. My response–disable the reply-to-all feature in Outlook.

While my suggestion was ultimately not implemented, the response to it made clear that many people struggle with the abuse of this Outlook convenience. To be sure, as alluded to in the LinkedIn exchange above, Reply to All is often appropriate and, by extension, a simple reply may be improperly excluding people who should see the response. Nevertheless, in my experience, reply-to-all abuse is far more prevalent than is its inappropriate ignoring.

As with any communication, especially one conveyed in performing our jobs, some forethought is required to achieve the desired communication result with the intended audience.  Just as we would think twice before sharing a sensitive matter regarding a colleague in a large meeting setting, preparing a lengthy memo to satisfy our five minutes of allotted time during a meeting or diving into the weeds for a board presentation, so too we must aim to have our email communications hit the right mark. That depends in no small part on ensuring that the right people are receiving our email communications (and the wrong people are not receiving them), be they recipients of the initial email or those included in a reply.

Of course, there needs to be an email to which to reply in order to use the reply-to-all feature at all. The sender of the email is in a different position than the one who replies to it. The sender was forced to consider to whom the email should be sent. That forethought is often absent when replying to all (or replying to the sender only), in large part because it is so easy to do.

It is worth noting that reply-to-all misbehavior often manifests itself with a pithy email conveying “thanks,” “I'll be there” or “OK.” In most cases, that message is clearly intended only for the sender of the email.

Let's curtail these gratuitous emails; they are a waste of time and display a modicum of disrespect to many, if not most, of its recipients. Before hitting reply to all, please ask yourself: “Do all these recipients need to see my response?” Often, the answer will be “no,” in which case you are strongly encouraged to reply to sender and supplement that communication with the portion of the “all” who should see your response.

• Misbehavior No. 2—The subject line that reveals nothing of the purpose of the email

The relevance of many emails is unrelated to what is stated in the subject line. That makes it much more difficult to discern what the email is about, which leads to inefficiency in prioritizing its handling. This is an easy problem to solve; it requires modifying the subject line so that it reads more accurately. The subject line misalignment takes many forms.

Who Left That Voicemail Message?

My personal favorite subject-line-confusion example is the forwarded email that is a transcription of a voicemail message with the attached voicemail file. The subject line says something like “FW: Voice Mail (45 seconds),”and there it lies in your inbox. How much more helpful would it be if the subject line were changed to “VM from Denise Jones re Pending Supply Order” or the like? Truly, the initial recipient of this email had to listen to the voicemail to understand its importance and figure out to whom it should be forwarded. It follows that the extra 15 seconds it would take to modify the subject line would greatly benefit the recipient of your forwarded email. Your colleagues will appreciate it if you update the subject line on emails used to forward a voicemail.

What Is That Document You Have Scanned?

Next, we have another email confusion classic—the forwarded scan from the copier. You know this one, I'm sure. Someone sends you a scan from the copier (or perhaps forwards it after having scanned it to themselves), and your inbox is beset with a “Scanned from a Xerox multifunction device” subject line. This tells you zero about the relevance of this email. You must click through to the attachment to figure out what is needed from you. My heartfelt advice, when sending any scanned document via email, you are encouraged first to scan the document to yourself. Before forwarding that message to the recipient, modify the subject line and, if necessary, the body of the email so your recipient can hit the ground running in addressing your communication.

Does That Lengthy Email Conversation Continue to Relate to the Original Purpose?

Subject line utility often plummets in an email reply, including with the precarious reply to all, especially when new recipients are added to the reply. What may have been an appropriate subject line for the initial email in the chain is not necessarily appropriate for the next or any subsequent reply, whether to all or not. As an example, a colleague recently informed her team of her upcoming vacation. The subject line aptly read, “S Upshaw Upcoming Vacation.” One of the recipients responded to that email to ask about particular agreements the sender was familiar with. Suffice it to say, the ensuing email discussion had nothing to do with Ms. Upshaw's vacation. If we are to embrace the effort to enhance email etiquette, a similar response should coincide with a new subject line that reads “XYZ Agreement Request,” or the like.

Email is an indispensable tool in our jobs. Its prevalence and simplicity risk lulling users into hitting send before giving due consideration of the appropriate recipients of the particular email and whether the subject line properly highlights the nature of the communication. Heeding the guidance in this article will yield proper recipients of our email communication, and clear guidance regarding the subject of our emails. This will reduce inbox noise for our colleagues, and, hopefully, ourselves. The all-important task of prioritizing, reviewing, responding and drafting emails will then be a bit more pleasant and efficient. With that, frustrations will subside and thoughts of capital punishment in response to email misbehavior will be ancient history.

Elliot Molk is vice president, associate general counsel at Corelle Brands LLC. His in-house career began at the company in 2007, when it was known as World Kitchen, LLC. Corelle Brands is a Rosemont, Illinois-based private, global consumer products company that manufactures and distributes Corelle® dinnerware, Pyrex® glassware, Instant Pot® pressure cookers and other products found in millions of homes around the world. Molk serves as a strategic business partner to clients in the C-suite and their teams across all commercial, operations and administrative business functions. He  graduated from The University of Chicago Law School, and earned his BBA degree from The University of Michigan.