Took me 5 years to realize I was over-explaining in emails to clients

I used to write these massive paragraphs justifying every little decision in my design work, thinking it showed I was thorough. Then one client last spring just replied with 'k' to a 3 paragraph email, and it hit me that they didn't care about the reasoning, they just wanted the result. I trimmed my emails down to bullet points and a clear next step, and suddenly people started replying faster and with actual questions instead of just nodding along. Anyone else catch themselves writing novels to clients when a few lines would do?

3 comments

3 Comments

smith.lee5d ago

The client forwarding it to their assistant for a summary is brutal but that's exactly what needed to happen for you to see it. I had almost the same moment when someone just replied "got it" to something I spent 20 minutes on.

sanchez.ivan5d ago

Yeah bullet points are basically a cheat code for getting people to actually read what you wrote. I started doing the same thing after a client forwarded my long email to their assistant with "can you summarize this for me

carr.luna4d ago

The way you have to learn this stuff through humiliation is honestly so REAL. Lee @smith.lee definitely knows that feeling of pouring effort into something and getting radio silence or a one word reply. There's this book or article I read once that said the average person only reads like 20% of the words in an email or document. That fact stuck with me because it explains EVERYTHING about why long paragraphs just disappear into the void of someone's inbox. Bullet points force people to slow down and actually SEE your points because they break up the wall of text. It's like giving your reader a map instead of making them navigate a maze.