codingdave
4 hours ago
"slow is smooth, smooth is fast"
Take the necessary time to communicate well, without guilt. Even if it does take extra hours out of your day, clarity in communication will speed up everything else. At the same time, understand which messages truly matter - a note to a peer asking a basic question should not take hours, but a message introducing new ideas to a group of senior leaders in order to change the company strategy should absolutely take a long time to write.
simon-rebbins
3 hours ago
Yeah, I agree with you.
I try to separate cases where a quick reply is good enough from ones that actually need more care. The tricky part for me is volume and context switching. There're many messages every day, all in different contexts, and even deciding which ones deserve extra attention takes mental effort. That's where I start feeling the cumulative cost, rather than any single message being hard on its own.
JohnFen
3 hours ago
If it's taking more than a few minutes to explain something, write an explainer paper about it rather than writing the explanation in the message itself. Then publish that paper (or at least keep it handy) and point people to it when they need deeper explanations. In this way, you only have to write up an explanation once.
I've found that, generally, casual inquiries don't usually need a deep explanation. They usually just need a fast, actionable answer. Provide that, then attach or link to another document that provides the full, deep explanation.
simon-rebbins
3 hours ago
Agreed. This works really well for recurring topics. One thing I've noticed, though, is that replying with a document or link can sometimes come across as a bit cold or even toxic, depending on the context or relationship. Your point about defaulting to a short, actionable answer first still resonates a lot.