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Business English Power, Episode 64 Aloha

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and welcome to Business English Power, the

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show for ambitious English students who want

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to level up their business English skills,

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become global communicators and international business leaders.

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My name is Al, also known as Al

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Sensei here on the show, as well as

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all around the world.

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Especially during my time spent in Japan as

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an English teacher, coach, and corporate

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trainer. Thanks so much for joining

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me today. We are going to

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talk email today, so I hope you are ready

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to go with that. We're going to talk about

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how to cut your email

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writing time by 10 minutes. You

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can all do that by following these simple tips

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that I will give you today. Before

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we get into that, please make sure you

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are subscribed to Business English Power or if

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you are an Apple podcast, please hit the

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subscribe button. If you are

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a 5 star rating. I

1:08

would appreciate that. You can do that in Apple,

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as well as Spotify, and pretty much every other

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podcast platform

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out there. Thank you so

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much for that. Let's get

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into today's episode. Back

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in Japan, one of the common

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classes that I would teach

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is email writing. Of

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course, we need to learn how to

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write email in English because that's one

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of the most common forms of communication

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these days. But

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the thing that I saw, which was quite

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troubling to me, which was

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so many people were spending so

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much time with writing

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emails, in particular even

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writing one message to one person.

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It would sometimes take many, many minutes,

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a long time, sometimes it's like 45 minutes to write

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one message. And so the

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goal of this episode is to

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try and cut that writing time

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down. And

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with just a few tips, I think everybody is

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able to do that. All right?

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And if you are already writing emails pretty quickly,

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hey, maybe you can gain a few

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insights with this episode as

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well. So we're going to

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talk about that today. Now, what

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is the first thing? We're going to go over three tips that

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you can use to help cut your

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email writing time. The

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first thing that I would

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advise is to use direct

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language. And don't worry about using

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the same phrases over and over.

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As I've said many times before, business

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writing is very different than

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creative writing. In

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creative writing, of course, we're taught by our teachers

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in grade school that we want to use more

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colorful language. You want to start using different vocabulary

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words. You don't want to use the same words

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every time, and that becomes

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quite boring. Yes, true. If

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you are writing and then

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reading something that is a creative work,

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something that is fiction, for example. But

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in the business world, it's very

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different, right? Because it's all about

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efficiency and saving time. We

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don't want to, of course,

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spend our time writing these long

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messages and using vocabulary

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that's beautiful sounding if we

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don't need to. And

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also, the receiver also doesn't need to

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have that as well, especially for wasting

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time that they could

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be doing other things. So

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that is the first tip, is

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to, again, not worry about using

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different phrases over and over. You want

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to be very efficient. Don't

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worry about using the same phrases.

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Because, again, the purpose

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is not to be creative and

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flowery and beautiful. The

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purpose is to be efficient. business.

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Okay so don't worry

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if you're using the same phrases every

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time that's perfectly fine just be direct

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and to the point. Alright

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the second thing is to use a

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timer. Okay use

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a timer when you're writing a business

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email. Now of course I always recommend

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practicing on your own time so you can do

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that as well. So practice when

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you have downtime not at work for example

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when you're at home and you have time

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to work on this kind of stuff. Well,

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practice writing an email and set

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a timer so that you're locked in to

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a particular time. So let's say it normally

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takes you, we'll just say 30 minutes to

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write an email from

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scratch. Okay from the beginning. Well

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maybe just cut five minutes off of that and set

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a timer for 25 minutes and see

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how you do with a little bit

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of time pressure. And I think you know and

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when the timer goes off just stop and see

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where you are. Okay how did you do? Was

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there still five minutes more that you needed

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actually or were you able to get most

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of it done in 25 minutes? Again I'm just

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using these times as a

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example so you know again know your

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own times for reference. But

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think about you know actually wow

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I was able to finish within

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that 25 minutes. That's

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great if you are able to do that. If not

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then think about okay well if

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I sent the message as it is

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right now and you know would it be

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acceptable if I just made maybe one or

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two quick changes here. Okay and then you

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know think about where you can cut

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your time and this how you would get

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faster next time. So always keep a timer

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and keep slicing off some

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of those minutes so you can have

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that time pressure. And sometimes that's all

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you really need to

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cut off significant amount of time to

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write your emails. Okay

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so that's the second tip is to use

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a timer. The third tip is

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to use a template or

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templates. So

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a template is basically an

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already written email

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with just the details that you need to

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fill in. Okay so it's already pre-done

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you just need to fill in some of the details like

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your name maybe the sometimes and places

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things like that. So

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of course not every email is

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going to fit one template so you need

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to have a few different templates things

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that you would send more frequently

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than others and that only you will

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know in your particular business and line of

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work what those will be. So

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maybe for example you make a lot of requests

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to a certain client so

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you can type out an email template

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that is a request email

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for example maybe there

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are orders that you

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need to place. So maybe there's an

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order template email that you can have ready to

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go where you just again fill

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in the details quickly. Okay so

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that's another way you can save

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some time. Now where do

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you get templates? Well you

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can make them on your own because again a

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lot of times it's going to be specific

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to your company not always. There's going to

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be times when you need more general templates

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which is fine but other times

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if it's specific the best ways to make them

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yourself. You can also one

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kind of bonus tip here is

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to look at an email from a foreign

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client or colleague of yours and

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see how they wrote their message

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to you. Okay what was the purpose

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of the email and then you

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can kind of just remove some of the details and

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you might have a template that's ready to go you

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might have to make a couple of adjustments but

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that's another good way to do it.

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Okay and then you can start making

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and creating your own templates that

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you can use for future emails.

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And just think if you had a few of

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those ready to go, you'd be saving a

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lot of time writing your future

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emails. Now also I'm

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going to be coming out with Al

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Sensei's email template very

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shortly. So be on the lookout for that.

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I will definitely announce when those are

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ready to go. Okay, so those

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are in the works and those

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will be ready to go pretty soon.

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All right, so let's review

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our tips to cut down your email

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writing time. First, use

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to not worry about using special

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vocabulary, fancy language

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and just use the same phrases.

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Again, don't be afraid to use the same

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words and phrases over and over

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because again, we are going for efficiency, not

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beautiful creative language. The

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second tip is to use a timer. Sometimes

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a little bit of time pressure will

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cause you to shave some time off

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of your writing time. The

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third tip is to

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use templates. Okay,

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so I hope those all make sense and

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to start to implement those things and

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you'll be cutting off your

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email writing time very

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very soon. You can cut 10 minutes off, I'm

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sure, of your writing time

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if you follow these steps. All

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right, so that's going to do it for this episode. Thanks

9:25

so much for listening today. We'll be back

9:28

at it again very soon. Make

9:30

sure again, please subscribe to Business English

9:32

Power. Don't miss a single episode. And

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platforms that you listen to Business English Power

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on. So I'm gonna

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wrap it up there. Thanks so much guys. We'll be back

9:53

again soon. Until then, remember to

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always level up your

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learning and level up your life. you