Please write shorter emails | Hacker News Reader

Please write shorter emails

five.sentenc.es

31 pointsroder33 comments

I think this is the opposite of how I prefer things. I much prefer higher-content, lower-iteration-speed email. Someone sends me 3-5 paragraphs that clearly and thoroughly explains an idea, and I respond within a few days with a response that I've had some time to think about (bonus: this exchange is now preliminary documentation). Trading 5-sentence emails is way too much iteration overhead imo. If I need that kind of communication, I'll get on IM or meet in person.

Agreed. For high traffic communication as this link implies, email is obviously not very efficient, unless you favor that much work. In person meet-ups, IMs or IRC chat for your company, are all better ideas if your time is more valuable in other work environment aspects.

I've employed this technique for the past year and I have found it effective and efficient.

It has forced me to write more concisely and directly the same point in which I was "wordy". There are always times when deeper/richer context is necessary, but that should be the exception to the rule - less is more. When I'm receiving 100s of work emails per day, I would rather read an email written like it was from Ernest Hemingway than Kurt Vonnegut.

You can convey a lot in 5 sentences, as I just did.

I think _delirium's point may be that writing longer emails with higher information density may preclude the need for you to receive 100s of work emails per day.

That's part of my goal at least. I use emails for things closer to design proposals, roadmaps, whitepaper outlines, etc., which need rationales, examples, etc. Ideally, an email should be something I'd like to archive and refer to in the future, at least until it's been superseded by something more authoritative (like an actual whitepaper). I think of them a little more like technical blog posts directed at specific readers; and it's hard to write a 5-sentence blog post that's worth reading. If it's just a quick ephemeral note or question, I'll use IM or my group's IRC channel.

An exception is emailing people I don't regularly work with, e.g. a professor at a university who I've never met. Those I do try to keep short and to the point, to maximize the likelihood I'll get a reply.

I think the reason that this sub-thread always comes up in these discussions, is that for some people, "emailing people I don't regularly work with" is the only thing they use email for.

I like the idea. In practice, I encounter the contradiction of people who complain that I "write too much" but then make mistakes -- ad nauseum -- because they don't read what I actually wrote.

There are second, and third, paragraphs for a reason. Take two minutes to read them, so that I don't end up telling you [rhetorical] the same thing five times.

It's a pleasure to encounter the person who doesn't respond for a day or three, but then actually addresses the points in my email. The end result tends to be a much more efficient and thorough process.

"Ernest Hemingway than Kurt Vonnegut"

I think you're trying to make a 'smart' reference but are confused. Overall, Vonnegut was generally at least as, or more concise; there is an entire page in _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ dwelling on the sweat on someone's brow.

I was referring to Hemingway relying on Kansas City Star style guide, where he began his career:

http://www.kcstar.com/hemingway/ehstarstyle.shtml

[edit] which is quite different than how Vonnegut writes

I think you managed to demonstrate precisely why concision is overrated. In your quest for concision you used an obscure reference to a facet of an author's literary career most of us were unaware of, thus completely obscuring your point and requiring further clarification.

When I'm receiving 100s of work emails per day, I would rather read an email written like it was from Ernest Hemingway than Kurt Vonnegut.

That's not what I'd call "quest for concision". It was a light-hearted comment.

Please have an attention span greater than that of a 4yr old.

I'd rather get 1-2 lengthy emails from someone, explaining all the details I need on a topic rather than have to have an IM-like exchange via e-mail to pull that information out of them.

Sure, maybe I won't respond immediately, but when I do, if you've given more more information to work with, then my response is, in turn, also going to be more well thought-out and useful.

Otherwise, well, garbage in, garbage out, and it just wastes everyone's time.

I agree - with the focus on "details I need on a topic". One topic/subject per email.

And if I had one "email wish" granted - it would be that people use a descriptive subject line and change the subject when the topic is changed.

So, wait. The solution to inboxes taking too long to empty is to cause more emails to be exchanged? Sure, each one may take less time to deal with, but it still adds up. And which is more of a drain: 5 larger emails, or 25 short ones? And keep in mind the woeful state of email threading across multiple servers.

As to using terse emails with people who get a lot, by all means, do so. It lets them read instead of skim, possibly missing important parts, and at worst is a better use of their time.

Personally, I tend to write large emails in two parts: a super-summary at the very top, labeled as such, so it can be quickly categorized and dealt with appropriately. Following that, a full explanation of whatever I think they may want / need / find interesting.

Where it can't be easily separated, I bold + slightly color key words so one can at least skim and only consume those words and likely understand the problem in its entirety. That tends to get reserved for the multiple-printed-page length emails, however. And runs the risk of seeming like you're "shouting" if you don't clarify before-hand somehow.

The other way to think of emails is as datagrams. Sometimes you'll get a reply, sometimes you won't. Or, from the other side: sometimes you'll be able to answer, sometime you won't. Don't feel bad about the latter case. If you don't hear back after a while and you really really need an answer, simply resend.

People go through email bankruptcies a few times a year. It's safer to assume it is an unreliable channel.

I wish that more people understood how unreliable the whole system is.

Please write better mails, especially professionally.

There is a mail disease that is common in the tech workplace, everyone merely adds their own 2 cents onto a large (and important) email thread, forwarding it around and giving every recipient the same problem: reproduce the relevant context by reading the entire thread again (including every single false path) and hope you come up with the same context as everyone else.

Corporate tech email would be a million times better if people spent a lot more time summing up the current state of affairs succinctly and laying out assumptions explicitly.

I usually prefer making it smaller. As much as possible, I try to write the content in the subject, to make it easy for the receiver to decide if it is important enough to reply or not. I do write longer mails when necessary, but I find that the short version suffices in most cases.

I think this is the opposite of what we need. Twitter and other things that encourage us to consume only bite-sized information (like http://tldr.it/) are basically making everyone dumb (or at least giving us ADD). The skill of articulating a complete and well supported or explained thought is critical in almost every line of work, but following things like this we train our own mental bandwidth for long-form stuff out of existence.

Detail is critical for understanding, analysis, and response. Teaching people to operate without it is dangerous.

I completely agree with the fact that we're becoming more dumb or increasing in incident of ADD; however that doesn't make a case for writing effective emails. In that case you should blog to practice your thought articulation and critical thinking.... However, I think writing concise emails, direct to the point, sans fluff is good for effective communication.

The author goes too far.

Sometimes emails need to be longer than 5 sentences because they need to convey more than 5 sentences of information. I can't tell you how many 1-2 sentence e-mails I receive every week where I have to ask the sender what they're talking about. This is a waste of my time.

If an e-mail is very long, however, it should include a brief introductory paragraph summarizing its main point and action items so the recipient can figure out whether or not he/she actually needs to read the whole thing. Sometimes the main point and action item summary is enough.

Most of my emails are short. When I must write a long one, it's usually because it includes technical content. In that case, I do this:

Bob,

I discovered why the frobnostication terminal was slow and submitted a fix. It will be QA'd tomorrow. Please find the technical details below.

Regards, tophat02

Now here's where I get into the technical details of the blah blah blah. This can span several paragraphs if I want. I don't worry about because I know Bob got the point up there -^

I like this site, and its goal, but I would never cite it in my signature like some people do. That strikes me as preachy.

While cogent, complete emails are desirable, in my experience people never respond to anything in an email past the 1st paragraph. So the rest of the comments/inquiriers have to be repeated, resulting in long pointless email threads.

Please Respond To The Entire Email is my entreaty.

I guess three didn't take of? http://three.sentenc.es/

Nor two: http://two.sentenc.es/

How about the utter failure that was http://one.sentenc.es/ ? Doomed by failed pluralization :'(

What about six-minute.sentenc.es/?

"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." --Pascal

In other words, don't be superfluous.

Be concise.

Omit needless words.

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