People who routinely employ the phrase tl;dr believe they are optimizing for scarce attention but I think, based on substantial experience with it, that they are mostly pessimizing for depth of thought.
Attention is so rarely the bind constraint. The world has fractal detail everywhere and nearly infinite blandishments.
Relatively few professionals are effective because of specializing in high-volume low-consideration decisionmaking.
Relatively few professionals are effective because of specializing in high-volume low-consideration decisionmaking.
Much professional work is in successful execution. For the variant which is more about discernment than execution, in most cases one isn't rewarded for alacrity or for repeatedly predicting the future.
One is rewarded for the magnitude of non-consensus rightness one finds.
One is rewarded for the magnitude of non-consensus rightness one finds.
A lot of professional writing which is not effectively execution in itself is about marshalling the data and arguments which will convince other people to join you in non-consensus rightness.
Those data / arguments' natural length is the length required to achieve action.
Those data / arguments' natural length is the length required to achieve action.
This is true both as a consumer and as a producer of arguments:
Don't favor the form factor over the correctness. That is an *expensive* preference to have over the long run.
Don't favor the form factor over the correctness. That is an *expensive* preference to have over the long run.
I am not opposed to e.g. executive summaries or writing well. I'm opposed to teaching people that most professional output is purposeless makework.
That is *also* a very expensive preference to have over the long run.
That is *also* a very expensive preference to have over the long run.
