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Interesting. I think I get stung by this as well - I've been struggling to understand why my clear, detailed, fluff-free emails aren't effective. The naive so
by endtime 16y ago
Interesting. I think I get stung by this as well - I've been struggling to understand why my clear, detailed, fluff-free emails aren't effective. The naive solution seems to be to pad your emails with bullshit, but I think this would often make them so long that they just don't get read.
One solution I've found is to talk to people in person, but this isn't time-efficient; another is to write a numbered(!) list of questions at the bottom, to force people to think about the things I want them to think about. But neither of these seems particularly elegant; has anyone come up with something better?
- ultrasaurus 16y agoToo many people write stream-of-conciousness emails, where they figure it out in their head, and don't clean out the cruft after (and if they don't want to read it, why would I) I think people have evolved in response to this to scan every email for 2-3 actionable sentences and stop once their queue is full. The best I can do is to template the email: [Pleasantries in on paragraph] -action 1 (in 10 words or less) -action 2 (in 7 words or less) [Status updates and other fluff, they can read it or not]
- waleedka 16y agoGood point. Another technique I use is to send unrelated items in separate emails. People tend to use the inbox as a todo list, so getting 3 short emails is easier to manage than one long email. Once you act on one, you archive it and move to the next.
- stcredzero 16y agoThere are others who just act on the 1st email in a group of 3. Fire those people too!
- vacri 16y agoI tend to waffle a bit (well, usually informative, but lots of info), so now at longish emails I go back to the top and put 'summary: foo'. Folks can get the summary and then drill down to detail if they want to. That's not going to help the GPs keyboard problem though.
- arctangent 16y ago1. Tell them what you're going to tell them. 2. Tell them. 3. Tell them what you told them.
- stcredzero 16y agoSomehow, I was thinking there are people out there smart enough, where you have enough of a rapport or common understanding, where you don't have to tell them in triplicate.
- arctangent 16y agoI'm unfortunate enough that I don't work for a company where everyone else is smarter than me. (How cool would that be?!) My solution to this is to be extremely specific in what I communicate (while avoiding condescension) and and to make my communications as easy to filter for other people as I possibly can.
- stcredzero 16y agoHow you do this, and keep it worthwhile to delegate -- something I'm still working at.
- endtime 16y agoThis seems like a kind of platitude; it hearkens back to writing 101 but it doesn't actually solve my problem at all.
- arctangent 16y agoSorry for that. It is a kind of platitude... and perhaps I should originally have stated that it wasn't my own invention. That said, I do find it useful to use this presentational pattern in meetings and also in formal conversation. Using this approach in my email has also served me well and this is why I suggested it in response to you.
- 16y ago