How I prefer to communicate
May 2021
Because how you work matters, and because I’m a special snowflake, and because I want to work effectively on stuff I care about, I have strong opinions on how we communicate.
For getting things done, asynchronous
Async video, audio, and messaging let everybody get focused work done when they’re most focused, take breaks whenever it suits them, and sleep when they want to.
Async communication also encourages brevity and precision. A three-minute screencast typically has more informational content than 20 minutes of back and forth on Zoom, with the added benefit of being replayable, pausable, and speed-uppable.
For getting to know each other, synchronous
If we just met, or we’re trying to stay friends, we need regular real-time conversations.
- IRL is best
- Phone is great
- Zoom is okay as long as it’s not the 8th Zoom of the day for each of us 😣
The agenda here is building trust, and closeness, and vulnerability, and inviting serendipity - not exchanging information or getting shit done, which are better suited to async communication.
Email is literally the worst, sorrynotsorry
I don’t want heartfelt messages from loved ones piled up alongside mission critical project information, cold outreach spam, receipts, and meeting invites.
Neither do I want to invest time and effort in reining in my inbox chaos. I’ve written complex rules and filters to eliminate the worst of email noise, and email still sucked. I’m over it. Please can we chat instead?