This could work at work or even at school, depending on the situation. Obviously, there’s no guarantee it’ll work every time, but hear me out.
Let’s say you need to email your boss an assignment with a file attached. Send the email, write a little something in the body, wish them a great weekend, whatever… and then intentionally forget to attach the file.
Wait until they reply saying the attachment is missing, then act like you just saw their email. If you’ve already got the assignment finished, you can immediately reply with the file attached. Boom. You look responsive, on top of things, and maybe even a little more competent than you would have otherwise.
Granted, this trick probably has a one- or two-time lifetime limit with the same person, so use it wisely.
Now, here’s the pro tip to the pro tip. When** **you try this, if you finish the assignment before they email you about the missing attachment, go ahead and send a follow-up apologizing for forgetting to attach it to the original email. Why? Because now you’ve established a pattern. The next time you pull the trick, it’s just, “Oh, he did it again.”
You might look a little careless, but at least you’ve conditioned them to expect it and can extend a deadline without the blowback.