Loved the quote about not being able to draw or write in this post about good writing. I have not read the book Ogilvy recommends reading thrice - that may be the primary source of my troubles with writing given its his first piece of advice.
For work, I do follow the rest of his advisory - specially the last point. If I need action, I will not email. Compared to folks I am surrounded by, I email quite rarely, I try to hold myself to the standard of not shooting off an email unless the occasion truly calls for it. Unless addressed directly for a response, I do not provide one. If a response is likely to muddy waters further, I refrain.
All that said, there are some who do not like side-bar chat, texts, messages and the like as the foundation of their work and decision-making. They want to hang their hat on an email thread that has several dozen people in copy for reasons known only to those who looped those folks in along the way - for visibility.
The person of whom action is desired simply will not do what is needed until the ask is made on that same thread. Their boss must necessarily be copied if any satisfaction is expected at all.
For those types, I do write the laborious emails, taking my time to pare and edit until the word count is reduced to a quarter of what I had started with. That's when I feel like I have been clear enough about what I want.
To preserve goodwill with those who are in receipt of emails from me, I try to limit the word count and always keep things well above the fold. I realize I am in competition for their limited time and attention span.
If all other emails are denser and more verbose than mine, chances are I will have priority - they may see my brevity as a reason to get me off their to-do list before they take on the more daunting items in their pile.
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