Considering the amount of time we all spend reading incoming email, it’s amazing how little we understand what we read.

That reading and understanding are two different things is clear; this is why legal documents use verbiage like “I confirm that I have read and understood the terms & conditions bla bla bla”… but it’s amazing how easy it is to read a mail message and totally miss large chunks of it. People glance at the message, form an impression of what it means to them, and move on – after all, they may have 100 others waiting to be read. The outcome is a degradation of communications that leads to many more messages as people try to fix the mess.

A common manifestation of this is the fact that nobody seems to respond to more than one action request per message. If the sender asks them three questions, a response to the first one is far more likely than having them all reacted to. The sender then sends an additional message to demand the remaining requests be filled, adding to the Infoglut.

There are practical implications: if you want someone to react to a number of queries or tasks, either send them in separate messages (preferable, unless they’re all related to the same matter), or put them in a clearly numbered list format, with the subject of the message stating “Three questions for you” or the like.

Another outcome of reading blindly is that people may jump to the wrong conclusion about the sender’s intent or attitude; many a gaffe has resulted from such mis-reading. It helps if you’re in the habit of delaying angry responses… what seemed as an insult at first glance may turn out to be quite appropriate once the context is clear.

And of course, you increase your chance of having your messages understood and acted on if you keep them short, clear and to the point. But that – writing a well-phrased letter – is one of those lost liberal arts…