People talk a lot about communication skills at work, so here’s a list of specific actions you could take to communicate better. Surprisingly enough, I learned all of these from an engineering consultancy, which is not really the place you would think would be the best at teaching this.

People don’t read

Write every message and email with the understanding that most people don’t read. If you write paragraphs, don’t be surprised when nobody reads them.

Put the most important point first. Bold the most important sections of a paragraph.

When you have multiple points, number them. People will be more likely to respond to your points if they’re specifically demarcated. If they miss a point, it’s also easier to ask for clarification by referring to the number.

Batching questions

When asking more senior people questions, rather than hitting them with a separate question every few minutes, batch your questions. This cuts down on the frustration of being interrupted multiple times.

A side benefit of this is that if you write down your question to ask later, about 50% of the time you’ll have found the answer when you return to send off your question batch.

Ask about the general problem you’re trying to solve, rather than the specific question you have

It’s called the XY problem. Check out this StackOverflow post.

“That is, you are trying to solve problem X, and you think solution Y would work, but instead of asking about X when you run into trouble, you ask about Y.”

Be explicit

Generally, give more meta information than you think necessary. If you’re stuck on a task — tell people you’re stuck and explain what you’ve tried so far. Publicly saying what you’ve tried has two functions. People will know you’re trying and other people won’t waste their time if they run into the same issue since they’ll see your explanation.

If you ask someone a question, explain what you’ve already tried. This cuts down on the frustration senior employees get from having to constantly answer queries and saves time for you if they tell you to try something you’ve already done.

Give context

Don’t crop screenshots. Give people as much context as you possibly can, which means that when you’re sending a screenshot of something, include your full screen so they can derive whatever information they need from that.

This can seem excessive and noisy. Marking the relevant part is significantly better than cropping, since you’re not removing context while still being clear. Add some arrows or circles to make your main point obvious.

Consider that your screenshot may be forwarded. Design your information in a way that is self explanatory.

Obviously — this applies to more than just screenshots, this is just one example.

Deadlines

If not given a deadline, the assumption is that it’s due ASAP.

If you’re actually busy, you can’t get to it for a while, and it’s a low priority, you need to state explicitly that it is a low priority. 

Just because you have a tight deadline doesn’t mean you have to do it immediately. Deadlines are made by other people and balancing priorities is an important part of working. The correct solution to being overloaded with work is to present your list of tasks to your manager and ask, “how should I prioritize this, with the understanding that I can’t complete all of these tasks in my allotted time”. This works, unless you’re in finance.

Don’t be late to things

You should obviously try to not be late to things. If someone asks you specifically to stop being late to something, then you should REALLY try to not be late to something. Aside from all the regular reasons like being rude — part of displaying competency is showing up to things on time.

Taking notes

I generally have a bad memory, so I would often forget what work was verbally assigned to me during meetings. Even though I don’t take notes in my personal life, I’m a big proponent of writing things down at work. It augments your memory and can be quickly made public if someone else needs documentation.

Prepare before arguing

The worst habit junior employees fall into is disagreeing without providing evidence. Never say, “that sounds like a stupid idea,” without being well prepared to explain why. Frequently, you’ll find you’re not as smart as you think and have to eat the crow.

If you receive a task you feel is dumb, build a tiny proof-of-concept, or put together a small document that’ll demonstrate the issue you think is pertinent. With that info, feel free to bring up the topic with your manager — if they’re a good manager they’ll be ecstatic that you began a discussion with real evidence.

Another possibility is that you’re not seeing the full context for the task. Ask what the big picture is, which is another thing that good managers love to see.

Design stuff

Consider the user whenever doing anything. If you’re creating diagrams, make sure your target audience can understand them. If you’re writing code, make sure it’s documented. Put some thought into things — it pays off in the long run, even if only for when you inevitably return to your own work a few months later.

Don’t go silent

If you’re working together with someone, try to check in every few days or so. Don’t just disappear if you’re stuck on a problem — give a progress update on how things are going.