[studentrob]

> You can only perform one complex task at a time

That may be, but is email the culprit?

I think it depends on what your emails contain. They can be stressful, challenging problems, or simple ones. For me, the longer I am at an organization, the less stressful communications become, assuming I've built good relationships.

It's the first period that's tough to get through. You're getting to know both the people and the business, software architecture, or whatever the job entails. During that time, we often blame email because we get email from strangers. Make the strangers friends, and email becomes a lot easier.

[chme]

> They can be stressful, challenging problems, or simple ones. For me, the longer I am at an organization, the less stressful communications become, assuming I've built good relationships.

I like to communicate with customers always short and to the point via emails, because I value my and their time.

But with friends, I like to write more interesting and funny emails, that takes me more time. But because they are my friends I am willing to spend it.

Writing those mails to friends takes more concentration and allows more reflection about them and myself, in order to express myself correctly and in a nice way.

I would see the culprit more in todays Twitter culture, where people are force to write short messages without much reflection.

Maybe even the onscreen keyboard in most smartphones are another reason. Nobody wants to write more expressive messages with them.

[studentrob]

> But with friends, I like to write more interesting and funny emails, that takes me more time

That's interesting that you find being funny more time consuming. Some people would say work/business/math is harder than humor.

You've proven my solution wrong. I can't think of anything more to say other than "some emails are easy, some aren't". And then, there will still probably be someone who says all their emails are a challenge, like Don Knuth, lol

[chme]

> That's interesting that you find being funny more time consuming.

With my friends and family I am more willing to express my feelings and opinions on subjective close topics where correct expression is more difficult. At least for me, that takes measurably more time than just stating facts or expressing opinions on more objective topics for customers (and sometimes friends, for example to organize an evening together).

Adding some business politeness just have to fit some template, is very unpersonalized and, I find, easily done.

But of course there are some difficult letters to write to business contacts to, but I would call them very self-reflective.

I think people like Knuth are more hand-written letter types, were someone is forced to reflect and to go to "the bottom of things", because the act of writing itself takes more time. But I think that it doesn't matter that much about which medium is chosen or how long it takes to generate the messages, because the persons that are generating those message chose how much time they are willing to spend on each subject. Forcing it though the medium might enforce a certain standard, that could help some people or is more bothersome for others.

[chrisweekly]

Huh. I find it much easier to be verbose. I've sometimes shared a laugh with colleagues when explaining, "Sorry, I didn't have time to write a short message".

Condensing / distilling something complex into its most-concise essence is a valuable skill most of us would do well to acquire.

"Brevity is the soul of wit."