Too many, not enough; it’s so important, it’s not important; write more, write less.

I can often clearly see both sides of the document game.

We write too much; but then, we have to document everything.

Documents are too long; but then, if we don’t have a record, we haven’t tracked the job properly.

There are too many documents in the first place; but then, it’s very hard to stop preparing an extensively long document if that’s what you’ve always done.

Even when you know there’s too much, it’s very hard to decide what not to include. That’s a conundrum.

In the corporate environment, I’m familiar with, documents are created, reviewed, and approved. Then they are either used or stored or both.

Each of those steps has important underlying responsibilities and requirements.

But this somewhat straightforward process (it’s only 4 or 5 steps) has become very complex and contorted, partially because technology allows us to create documents so easily.

But if there’s ever a dispute, we all know what helps solve it. The documentation.

Even with all of the digital advancement going on, there is still a role for people to create, review, approve, and then use and store documents.

One of the current mysteries of life is solving information storage. There is an ever-present need to figure out where to store the multitude of electronic data we have, as well as how to categorise it.

With emails, documents, slack, IMs, meeting minutes, project files, magazines, articles, books, newsletters… I could go on, as you can imagine.

It arrives in one form, we consume and consider it, and then, the relevant outputs need to be categorised and stored.

Categorising the information for storage is one thing. More importantly, though, is the ability to retrieve it efficiently when it’s needed.

There’s a quote out there that goes something like “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter”.

For many of us, it’s easy to write a long, wordy, free writing, run-on (and on) explanation about something, which surely has an enormous amount of useful information in it. It probably has some wonderful turns of phrase. And some really insightful content, too.

But as many writers know, the hard part is only now beginning.

Taking that long, drawn-out, run-on paragraph and styling it so that the reader wants to read the next sentence: that’s what takes time.

Meetings and workshops often (and should almost always) end up with action lists of some sort.

It’s been said that “a meeting without minutes didn’t happen”, but also, “a meeting without an action list could probably have been done by email”.

It’s easy to write action items so that they don’t solve the problem. “Write a procedure” won’t solve a quality control issue. The procedure also needs to also be implemented, and then verified.

When writing action items, include a description of what it looks like when it’s done, and also try to describe what happens if it isn’t completed.

Some people just turn out to be logical and practical.

Like being respected, I think we want to be thought of as logical, but, awkwardly, some just aren’t.

Arriving at a logical conclusion is the goal of many discussions. So not being logical, when it’s needed, can be a real detriment to the conversation.

Logic requires the application of not just sequential, but also consequential thinking. Logical thinking includes clear reasoning and sensible conclusions.

But these descriptive words are subjective and very hard to measure. Some don’t know when they’re not being logical, and, it’s often hard to point it out.

Here are some expected cultural norms, summarised a while ago by Kenneth Hayne, Australian Financial Services Royal Commissioner. Sometimes it’s useful to reflect on them now and then:

• Don’t mislead or deceive, especially those who are uninformed or vulnerable.

• Act fairly, so that all involved can share the benefit or the risk.

• Provide services that are fit for purpose, provided both parties are clear what the expected purpose is.

• Deliver services with care and skill.

• When acting for someone else, remember it’s for them.

• Obey the law, it’s there to protect all of us, based on previous experience and expectations.

Reading skills are thinking skills. Good readers of non-fiction read with questions in mind, to get the most out of it. Reading well includes the ability to interpret information, build knowledge, and recognise key concepts.

Writing skills are thinking skills. Good writers can put together sentences that make the complex simple. Writing well includes the ability to write so that the reader wants to read the next line.

Editing skills are thinking skills. Good editors know the grammar rules, but also know the audience and purpose of the text. Editing well includes being detail oriented, having good judgement, and, patience.

Too long, didn’t read.

It’s a clever acronym, used in social media discussion groups, to recognise when the reference is long or detailed.

There’s an underlying tone of impatience, too. That may be because communication is being shortened to texts, tweets and channels.

Maybe this is all ok. What I find useful about the TL;DR statement, is that in the few cases I’ve come across it, the writer has also provided a summary of the content. That means they’ve had to read it. And, better yet, someone else has written it. Those two may be the ones worth communicating with.

It’s possible to have done a task so many times, that it is impossible to imagine any step being forgotten. Routines and habits take care of many daily tasks. No need for a checklist to get fully dressed in the morning.

We may think our jobs are too complicated to be reduced into a checklist. On the contrary though: the very complexity of them points to the benefits of a checklist approach. The aviation industry introduced checklists, medicine has perfected them, and the construction sector benefits from checklists every day. Checklists help ease the burden of having to remember everything.

This weekend I finished two things on my ‘project’ list for home organisation: one was finally clearing the (electronic) backlog clutter of over 250 articles to read, accumulated since July last year. The other was clearing the clutter in the spare room – which still held a pile of papers from the overseas trip taken in early March. That seems like forever ago.

It’s quite satisfying, of course, to finish a project or reach an achievement. What got me there was not the goals themselves, but the dedicated progress of doing a little bit each day for the past six weeks.

I recently heard an interesting observation about human behaviour, patterns, and predictions.

It’s very difficult to predict what one person will do (ie, download an app, or take the next card in blackjack), but in a population of a million, there are predictable patterns.

I’m not sure how this fits in to anything I do these days, but someone out there is predicting what I might do. This is the science of statistics, I suppose, and we’re all a part of it.

It applies in elections, pandemics, risk management, economies.

Individually, we’re not predictable, but in a crowd, we are.

Something that has come into stark relief in the last six weeks, is how we define, describe, or prove productivity.

In my mind, it is hard to separate ‘productivity’ from ‘producing something tangible’. The word feels related to industrial production, like manufacturing work. That’s where productivity is clearly measurable.

Being “productive” is “getting stuff done”. And that ‘stuff’ needs to be tangible, provable.

But these days, perhaps we are realising that being productive can also be related to doing things that are just “consequential” rather than tangible. It should be plausible to be productive just “being” rather than always doing.

We’re often advised to “listen more”. Advice like: “we have two ears, one mouth… use them in that ratio”. It’s good advice, but not quite the right advice.

It’s possible to listen but not hear. The only way to know you’re listening, is if you’re able to explore the ideas and information being presented, with follow-up questions and curiosity.

Do more than “listen”: be curious. Listen with intent to find out more. And if you’re speaking, and the listener goes on after without exploring your input, then you may conclude they don’t actually want to know more about your ideas.

“Everyone makes mistakes”.

Sure, we know that; but, dealing with it is harder than that pithy line allows for.

Whether we are the one who made the error, or we are the one who finds it in someone else’s work, we are faced with a challenge. Cue the ego.

Managing egos is indivisible from managing errors, particularly in technical and design arenas.

So, it is in the organisation’s interest to have a solid ‘checking’ culture, where checking is not seen as a negative process. And when errors are found, there is a clear and supportive process to deal with it.

In the built environment, a good engineer or technical expert will produce a document, or they will at least produce something tangible (this might not directly apply in the IT/Tech environment).

Good engineers demonstrate competence through their pictures and words. There’s no way around it: for a technical role, the output is tangible and “written” – whether a drawing or report or a calculation or a plan.

A manager or leader can do an excellent job of managing or leading, without necessarily producing a document. No competent engineer can do that: an excellent engineering job is defined by producing something tangible. If there’s nothing tangible, what was engineered.

It’s not unusual that person’s daily tasks don’t fully reflect the position description that was presented in the beginning.

We have job titles, and labels and roles and positions and leadership tracks. And sometimes we do something else entirely, not related to those titles, labels or positions.

The important thing in knowledge work, is to use our knowledge to create a better business. Be aware of the importance of ‘doing’, as well as ‘showing’ knowledge. In a technical arena, your job title probably does not convey fully your technical ability, nor the skills needed to teach that knowledge to others.

Paradoxically, adding constraints is a way to come up with new ideas. Reducing the options sharpens the focus and enhances creativity. Constraining the input has an opposite effect – it improves problem-solving ability.

It’s the same as the research into decision fatigue: with too many choices, or when we have already made too many decisions that day, our brains can struggle with the cognitive load. And so, we look for an easy way out.

Constraining options helps in several ways. Like right now, there are fewer options for how to meet, and so we are finding new ways to do that.

One thing about writing, be it reports for work, turning in a term paper, or even just writing notes, is the need to come up with original thought.

Progress reports, team updates, even agendas and action items, require the effort of putting together thoughts and words that haven’t been put together before. That is hard work.

In the days of search engines, direct plagiarism is easily found, should one want to go to the effort.

Giving credit is an obligation; but then, defining the originator can be a challenge too. Enhancing others’ work is part of extending knowledge and improving.

There are almost 200 named biases; they help us with decision making, social interactions, and memory errors.

Another way to consider biases is to think of which problem they are trying to solve.

With too much information, we use biases to filter quickly, by looking for repetition, or confirmation. When there is not enough meaning, we use stories or patterns to find the signal. Needing to act fast makes us simplify with overconfidence or status preservation. If there’s something to remember, stereotypes and editing show up.

Every cognitive bias we have, is used to save the brain’s energy or time.