You believe in email. Like, genuinely believe in it. You’ve seen what it can do. You’ve gotten those replies where someone says “it felt like you were talking directly to me” and you thought, okay, yeah, this is worth it.
And then you didn’t send one for three weeks.
Not because you stopped believing. Because Tuesday came around and you opened a blank doc and stared at it for twenty minutes and then went to do literally anything else. Dishes. Client work. Reorganizing your Google Drive for the fourth time. [Just me? Cool.]
The problem was never email. It was never your writing ability, either. It’s that you’ve been trying to write a polished, finished email from scratch every single week with no system and no starting point. That’s not a writing problem. That’s a process problem.
So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to give you a 15-minute method that actually works, and we’re going to talk about how to use templates and AI without sounding like you were replaced by a chatbot. Because that’s the real fear, right? Not that you can’t write faster. That faster means generic or robot.
It doesn’t have to.
Why Email Takes So Long (And It’s Not Because You’re Bad at It)
Two things. That’s usually all it is.
The Perfectionism Trap
You write a sentence. You read it. You change a word. You reread it. You delete the whole thing and start over. You wonder if “hey” is too casual for a subject line. You open Canva to check if the header image still looks okay. Now it’s been 45 minutes and you’ve got one paragraph that you’re still not sure about.
I’ve done this. More times than I want to admit.
Here’s what’s actually happening. You’re writing and editing at the same time, and those are two completely different brain tasks. It’s like trying to cook dinner and wash the dishes simultaneously. You can do both, just not in the same motion. [Though I’ve definitely tried.]
The Blank Page Problem
The other killer is having no starting point. No template. No outline. No list of go-to formats. Just you, a cursor, and the vague idea that you should “probably talk about something helpful.”
You’re asking your brain to figure out what to say AND how to say it AND how to structure it AND what the CTA should be, all at once. No wonder it takes an hour or two, or three…
Start With a Brain Dump, Not a Blank Page
If you remember one thing from this whole post, let it be this: stop trying to write an email on the first pass. Write a mess first. Make it an email later.
What a Brain Dump Actually Looks Like
Set a timer for five minutes. Open whatever you type fastest in. And just go. Everything you’re thinking about one topic, out of your head and onto the screen. Don’t fix typos. Don’t reword anything. Don’t even think about subject lines.
It’s going to look terrible. Like, genuinely bad. Sentence fragments and half-thoughts and random tangents.
That’s exactly what it’s supposed to look like.
Where to Find Your Starting Material
Some days the brain dump flows. Other days you sit there like, “I have nothing to say.” You do, though. You’re just looking in the wrong places.
Try these:
- A question someone asked you this week, in a DM or on a call or in a comment
- Something you explained to a client that made them go “oh, THAT’S what that means”
- A mistake you made in your own business that turned into a lesson
- A line buried in a blog post you already wrote that deserves its own moment
- A random thought that keeps poking at you
That last one is where some of my best emails come from, honestly. The ones that aren’t strategic at all. Just something I noticed or experienced that my people would get.
If you’ve been repurposing your blog content for emails, you’ve already got a pile of material waiting. You just need five minutes and a timer.
The 15-Minute Email Method
Okay. Here’s the method. It’s four time blocks. Nothing fancy. No special software.
Minutes 1 to 5: Brain Dump
Timer on. One topic. Write everything. Fix nothing.
You already know how this works.
Minutes 6 to 8: Pick Your Point
Read through your dump. Find the three or four sentences that have actual energy in them. The ones where you can hear your own voice. Bold them or highlight them.
Now delete everything else.
Your email needs one point. One. Not a thesis with supporting arguments. One thing you want your reader to walk away thinking about. That’s it.
Minutes 9 to 13: Write Like You’re Texting a Friend
Take those highlighted sentences and string them together into something readable. Short. Conversational. No transitions like “furthermore” or “in addition.” Nobody texts their friend “in addition.”
This part is where your voice shows up. In the phrasing you’d actually use. In the way you’d explain this if someone asked you about it at a coffee shop.
If you’re stuck, try saying it out loud first. Just talk through it like you’re explaining it to someone. Then type what you said. I know that sounds almost too simple. It works anyway.
Minutes 14 to 15: Add a CTA and Do a Quick Tone Check
Give your reader somewhere to go. “Reply and tell me.” “Read this post.” “Grab the freebie.” One clear next step, not three.
Then read the email once more. Not for grammar or spelling. For tone. Does it sound like you? Would you say this to a client over coffee? If a sentence feels stiff or formal, rewrite it the way you’d actually say it.
Done. Send.
Matt Giaro talks about a similar approach to writing newsletters fast, and the core of it is the same. Give yourself a structure and a time limit, and the overthinking doesn’t have room to take over.
Templates and Swipe Files: Speed Without Sounding Generic
I can already hear the objection. “Templates sound great, Steph, but won’t all my emails sound the same? Or worse, like someone else?”
Fair concern. But here’s the thing about templates. They’re not meant to be copied word for word. They’re a starting skeleton so you don’t have to figure out structure every time.
A good template gives you:
- A subject line formula to riff off of
- A basic layout (hook, body, CTA)
- Prompts for where to drop in your own story or example
That’s it. The skeleton stays. The words are all you.
How to Make a Template Sound Like You
This is the part most people skip, and it’s the part that matters most.
When the template says “I’m excited to share,” and you would literally never say that, change it. Say what you’d actually say. “So I tried something last week.” “Can we talk about something that’s been bugging me?” “Okay, this one’s short.”
Your phrases. Your slang. Your weird little analogies that only your audience gets. That’s what makes a template yours instead of everyone’s.
Read it out loud. [Yes, I’m going to keep saying this.] If it sounds like a press release, it needs more you. If it sounds like something you’d type in a Vox to your business friend at 9pm, you’re there.
The whole write-first, edit-later approach applies here too. Fill in the template fast and sloppy. Then go back and make it human. Your kind of human.
Where AI Fits In (Your Sidekick, Not Your Ghostwriter)
Alright, let’s get into it. AI.
I use AI. Not gonna pretend I don’t. And I think you should use it too, with a big ole asterisk.
What AI Is Great At
AI is great at taking your messy brain dump, the one with sentence fragments and half-thoughts, and turning it into a first draft that’s organized and readable. It can give you three subject line options when your brain is empty. It can smooth out a paragraph that you know has a good idea buried in it somewhere but you can’t find the words.
It’s a starting point machine. That’s where it shines.
What You Bring That AI Can’t
Your stories. Your specific, weird, and only-you details.
AI doesn’t know that your cat knocked your coffee off the desk this morning and it reminded you of something about website backups. It doesn’t know that your audience hates the word “clarity” [bleh!] or that they’d rather hear “just try it” than “implement this framework.” It doesn’t know the inside joke you have with your email list or why your readers love it when you talk about your Costco runs.
That stuff is your voice. And it’s the reason people open your emails instead of just skimming the subject line and archiving.
So here’s where I land on this. Use AI for the draft. Then go through every single line and ask yourself, “Would I actually say this?” If the answer is no, change it. If it sounds smooth and professional and polished, that’s probably the part that needs the most work. [Ironic, right?]
The biggest tell that an email was AI-written isn’t bad grammar or weird phrasing. It’s that it’s too even. Too polished. Too consistently “on.” Real people are uneven. Real emails have a line that’s a little too long and a paragraph that’s just one sentence and a random aside that doesn’t totally connect but makes the reader feel like they’re hearing from an actual person.
Keep the unevenness. That’s the good stuff.
The Voice Check: Read It Out Loud
I already said it, but I’ll say it again because this is the single most useful editing trick I know.
Read your email out loud before you send it.
If you stumble over a phrase, rewrite it. If it sounds like something a LinkedIn thought leader would post with a selfie, delete it. If you wouldn’t say it that way to a friend, it’s not done yet.
Your ear is a better editor than your eyes. Every single time.
The Fastest Email Is the One You Actually Send
Here’s what I really want you to take from this.
A Tuesday email that’s “good enough” beats a Friday email that’s “almost perfect.” Your readers aren’t grading you. They’re not comparing your newsletter to some marketing guru’s 47-part automated sequence. They just want to hear from you. Regularly. In your voice. About something real.
That’s the whole thing. That’s it.
You already have the ideas. You already have the voice. You just needed a faster path from your brain to their inbox. And now you have one.
So pick a day this week. Set the timer. Dump your brain out. Write like you’re texting a friend. Hit send.
Then do it again next week.
Want to make it even easier? The 3-Email Welcome Sequence Starter Kit gives you plug-and-play templates for your first three emails, so you’ve got the structure and the prompts already done. Just add your voice and send.
You bring the voice. The tools just shorten the distance between “I should send an email” and actually sending one.
