* Use a few bullet points to put attention on the main points you want to convey.
* Without going overboard, use a tasteful amount of graphic design (bolding one key sentence or whatever).
* Break up a giant nuanced email into sections.
* If something is critical, make it visual: a picture, explainer video, or an infographic can be really useful for something key.
This is harder than it looks. A quote attributed to Mark Twain is "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." It's a lot easier to go overboard than to distill what needs to be conveyed into the core elements.
Hell, I've learned not to ask more than one question in an email. The first one is the only one to get answered.
For me, I tend to 'jump' to the first answer that comes to mind, without reading the full nuance, likely because I'm optimizing at replying sooner, so I can move onto the next task, because I have many tasks I need to do. I quickly pattern match and move on.
imagine times where you replied to emails partially
Why do the thorough people always have to empathize and not the other way around?
I also never said that I will answer your questions right away. Just that I will answer all 7 of them once I do reply. The opportunity cost of looking at my email inbox might be way too high at a particular moment and so I might not even see your message for a full day to begin with. Same w/ a slack message. I might not see your particular message for some time or I might see it and decide that it's not a message I can deal with on the side while in a meeting and mark it for later consumption e.g. for when the meeting ends early etc.
FWIW I've so far never seen anyone try to 'use' my thoroughness to create a denial of service attack against me. If that ever did happen, I would definitely change my stance. But it won't be to answer the first question each time. It would be to stop talking to them. Like I ignore any "Hi, can I ask you a question?" messages. Even some directors have tried that and just gotten ignored (first time someone does it, I will let them know they can just ask away. Second time they get ignored until they learn).
(I too appreciate thoroughness, but also believe that for some things in business “worse is better”. IE 90% thoroughness might cost 1/10th as much as 99% thoroughness, it’s certainly possible to over-index on the quality of the answers one provides)
You asked
> Why do the thorough people always have to empathize and not the other way around?
“Answers questions thoroughly” is a behavior, not part of a person’s identity. If someone gives you a partial answer, that may be optimal behavior for the circumstances, you don’t know, that’s where the empathy comes in. Of course empathy should be mutual, but you can’t be blocked on that to obtain a favorable business outcome. Empathy is a tool in your toolbox.
Maybe it's not entirely clear what I mean with thoroughness here. I am talking about not just ignoring someone's questions. It doesn't mean that if you "ask" me to answer 7 questions that will each take a day of work to answer that I will be "thorough and do those 7 things immediately to get you your answer". I will simply ensure that I read all your 7 questions and tell you that each will take me about a day to answer as it would require certain checks and that I do not have the time for that at the moment. However, if your questions are so urgent vs. the other things I have on my plate, you are welcome to talk to my boss/my product owner/etc on getting your items prioritized higher. I have a finite amount of time per day that I do work and while the exact amount can vary from time to time I will not start working 80 hour weeks or start ignoring your questions.