Imagine your manager opening your email on their phone, in a lift, between two meetings. You have about eight seconds of their attention. Whatever sits in your first line is the only thing you can be sure they will read.
Most beginners write work emails like mystery novels: background first, reasoning in the middle, and the actual point in the last paragraph — the exact spot a busy reader never reaches.
Professionals write upside down.
The mystery novel, rewritten
Here is a real email, written the way most people write it:
Hi Maria, hope your week is going well. As you know, Sam and I have been working on the client report. While checking the numbers yesterday, Sam noticed that the April data file is missing two rows, which means the totals on page 3 do not add up. We contacted finance, but they said they cannot resend the file before Monday, and since the report is due Friday, I was wondering whether it might be possible to move the deadline to Tuesday?