Lovely thought experiment showing the time tax of writing long emails

Or flip the situation around and imagine you are sending a three-paragraph message to all 120 employees at your organization. You deliberate over every word; your high school English teacher would be so proud of you. But then it takes each employee two minutes on average to read what you wrote. Across 120 employees, your lovingly crafted message will impose a four-hour time tax. If you cut its length by just one paragraph, you would save eighty total minutes of employees’ time.

Nudged

Writing for Busy Readers: Communicate More Effectively in the Real World

Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink

Excerpt from

Writing for Busy Readers: Communicate More Effectively in the Real World

by Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink

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Behavioural principles

Behavioural ideas at play in this post

Short, plain-English explanations of the principles behind this post, with links to related books and examples in the archive.

Processing fluency

Easy-to-process things feel truer, safer, and more appealing.

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Base-rate neglect

We focus on vivid specifics and ignore the wider statistical odds.

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Narrative bias

Coherent stories feel truer than messy reality.

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Lovely thought experiment showing the time tax of writing long emails

Behavioural ideas at play in this post

Sharp thinking in your inbox