Email: The word itself can induce anxiety, especially when trying to manage both a personal and work inbox, and striving for the elusive “Inbox Zero.” A big reason inboxes are so difficult to manage is the sheer volume. Globally, more than 269 billion emails are sent every single day. The average worker receives 121 and sends 40 daily—whether it’s from their phone, laptop, or desktop computer. And this doesn’t include personal emails, which may range from bank statements to updates from Mom.

An email backlog can decrease productivity and generally lead to unhappiness and stress. Luckily, there are plenty of Gmail tools, tips, and hacks that can make you a more productive email user. Email templates—which are pre-written emails you can easily modify—are a great way to save time and increase work productivity. They can also be a helpful tool to improve your communication style, build important relationships, and ensure you don’t forget critical information or make crucial followups with business partners. Today’s email clients, especially Gmail, support the use of email templates to make writing effective emails easier. We’re going to introduce Gmail’s Canned Responses, a critical tool to insert email templates instantly into a new message.

Example templates for (almost) any situation

Here are some templates you can easily copy and paste into your canned responses today. Make sure to read each carefully and personalize or tweak so they better suit your business and communication strategy.

Reaching out to someone new

Dear [Contact Name],

My name is [Your Name] and I am the [Job Title] at [Company Name], which [one to two sentence explanation of what your business does.]

It’s been a pleasure [following your career/hearing you speak at X event/reading your work]. In particular, I was impressed with [a piece of work you’re particularly interested in]. If you have time, I’d love to set up a phone call or take you to coffee and learn more about your work and how we could potentially collaborate.

Thanks so much,

[Your name]

Following up after a meeting

Hi [Contact Name],

Thank you so much for our meeting today. I really enjoyed our conversation and loved learning more about what you’re doing at [Company Name].

Here are the agreed-upon next steps for us to take:

• Person X to do Task Y by Z Date
• Person X to do Task Y by Z Date
• Person X to do Task Y by Z Date
  

Thanks again for your time. Let me know if I forgot anything.

Best,

[Your Name]

Requesting information from teammate

Hi [Contact Name],

Thanks so much for your work on [Phase A] last week. In order to move forward with our project, could you please provide me with an update on [Specific Action Item] so we can proceed and stay on track with our timeline?

If you could let me know the [Specific Action Item] status by [Deadline], I’d appreciate it.

Thanks in advance for your help,

[Your Name] 

A friendly follow-up

Hi [Contact Name],

I hope you are doing well. This is a friendly ping, given I haven’t heard back from you since our last conversation.

Please let me know if [Item] is something you’d like to work on together right now, or perhaps sometime in the future if you need a little more time. Your follow up is greatly appreciated.

All my best,

[Your Name]

Discontinuing a product subscription

Dear [Account Manager Name],

I wish to discontinue my [product subscription] on [Date]. My account number is [Account Number].

The reason I am discontinuing the service is because [one to two sentence explanation as to why you are discontinuing].

Please confirm the cancellation at your convenience. Thank you so much for your assistance!

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Introduction to someone else

Hi [Contact Name],

I hope this finds you well! I’d love to introduce you to my colleague [Colleague Name], who does [X] at [Company Name] [(S)he would like to speak with you because [one to two explanation for connection.] 

[Colleague Name], [Contact Name] and I both connected at [Place] in [Date] and [(s)he] has continued to be a supportive business partner and friend. I will let you both take it from here!

Thank you,

[Your Name]

Set it, forget it, then edit

Now you should be equipped with all the tools to take your email skills to the next level. With strategic and thoughtful yet canned responses, you won’t always have to start from scratch when you compose a new email. Watch the hours it normally takes to write emails decrease to minutes! (Your boss can thank us later.)