On emails in straitjackets...

I sent an email to a friend last week telling her about some of the things I've been learning recently.

Then I started to worry. What would she make of it? 

I realised I hadn't subjected it to my usual strict barrage of tests, which goes something like...
 

How To Get An Email Right...
 

1. Is there enough preamble, asking them how they are and commenting insightfully on their last email to me?
 

2 .Have I done a good job of explaining what I want to say and/or why I've taken so long to reply (if I have!)
 

3. Is it clear and to the point or could I make it look better by changing some words and sentences around?
 

'I should have been more careful,' I thought. 'I shouldn't have written all that stuff about my own learning.  She'll be in a totally different place to me, and it won't make any sense to her at all...'

But it was too late. The email had gone.
 

The following morning, I received a reply from my friend, which started like this...
 

'...Talk about synchronicity!! Wow and wow again! When I read your email, my head was nodding up and down so fast I felt dizzy...'

She went on the show me how relevant some of the things I'd shared had been as they reflected and confirmed conclusions she had just reached herself.

Oh! I thought, slightly taken aback by her enthusiasm and how wrong I had been.  Perhaps I've been worrying too much about what my words will mean to someone else and how they will come across...?

...What if I can't control those things anyway?  People will respond in the way they do whatever I write and however I put it?

In trying so hard to get my emails 'right', I've ended up putting them in straitjackets!

Is it time to put my trusty list of check points to one side and simply

...write what's there to write?