Skim-Reading Less Helps our Teams and our Time

Skimming has a hidden cost

Picture this. You’re dealing with a team issue. You have an idea of what to do, but would like your manager’s guidance. She’s always busy, and your regular catchup isn’t until the end of the week. So you write to her. Respecting her time, you keep it short. You give the topic and the context. You list two options, saying which seems better. And you mention another option that wouldn’t work. You ask whether your manager agrees. You know she’s handled stuff like this before. Signing off, you check the word count. 100 words. The same length as this paragraph.

She writes back at the end of the day. She asks whether you’ve thought about another option. But it’s the same option you rejected. She skipped that bit. You write back to explain, and wait another day for an answer. She writes back, apologizing, and pointing out some useful info. All good, but you both wasted some time — time that busy people can’t afford to lose.

You’ve probably been in that writer’s shoes, frustrated at being misunderstood. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve been in that manager’s shoes too. We’ve read too quickly and missed some important detail. It might not seem a big deal, but over time, that wasted time and frustration can mount up.

We all skim

Reading online information, we all skim, a lot of the time. In a survey by the authors of the book “Writing for Busy Readers”¹, respondents reported skimming nearly 40% of their emails and 20% of their text messages. But that seems optimistic. (Self-reported data often is.)

To a survey by Ziming Liu², 80% of respondents reported that they spend more time on “browsing and scanning” than they used to, and a similar percentage do more “non-linear reading”.

In “Reader, Come Home”³, scholar Maryanne Wolf summarized research on reading behavior, finding that:

Does this skimming behavior mean that we are able to understand what we read in less time? Perhaps not. Often, we think we have understood more than we actually understood.

What do we miss by skimming?

What kind of information do we lose? Just some unimportant details? Maryanne Wolf describes research on how skimming hurts comprehension (emphasis mine):

Having a logical argument structure is essential to make good decisions at work, and to communicate those decisions. If skimming readers miss the logical connections, they’re not just missing some detail, they're missing the main point.

Let’s say, though, that by skimming and scanning they still manage to pick up some key information (perhaps because it is highlighted or placed at the beginning of paragraphs). They will still miss some of the context.

Context is crucial. I’ve been in several misunderstandings when I haven’t given enough context, or the reader hasn’t taken the context in.

Ros Atkins is a BBC presenter who’s made a career from explaining complex topics clearly. In “The Art of Explanation”, he writes⁴ that:

And while you might feel that all of this missing information can be filled in gradually in meetings or calls, sometimes it isn’t. In fact, the lack of context can be very serious. See How Skim-Reading May Have Sealed the Fate of a Space Shuttle.

While that is an extreme example, the effect of skimming hurts our work in other, less obvious ways.

Does skimming hurt manager-team relationships?

I recently asked on LinkedIn and some other places whether people preferred to have their words read through carefully (if they kept their writing short), or were OK with having their writing skimmed. I asked it in the medium of a poll:

(There was an introduction before the poll, with more context. I’ve pasted it below⁵.)

Most people (90%) voted for the 300-word, non-skimmed option. The comments were interesting. Many people pointed out the virtue of writing short. That’s good advice on a professional forum. But for some people, it was not only a case of preferring short writing, but a real desire for their writing not to be skimmed.

Jeffrey Hendricks wrote:

Grace Blacksea wrote:

On Twitter/X, user CjgbVictoria wrote that my hypothetical mentor was “A nightmare boss” (I kind of agree, but that hypothetical boss prompted these thoughtful responses, so I can’t complain too much!)

And over on Mastodon (a place where people are sometimes less guarded), MossyQuartz wrote that:

These responses don’t surprise me. If your team member takes the time to write some words, they hope they’ll be read. Of course, if there’s information that’s optional, for background information or reassurance, they can mark it as such, for example setting it off at the bottom of the text or in a different section. But generally your team members are writing to be read, not skimmed. And if you regularly miss critical points? Over time, they will become frustrated.

Remember that if they’re taking the time to write, that’s great! Writing helps teams consider problems more deeply. I gave some examples in a previous post⁶, from Apollo to Amazon. Writing also helps save time and can be more inclusive too⁷. Your team member is doing you a favor by putting their thoughts in writing.

So as a manager who wants to avoid the extra work of fixing misunderstandings, and wants to build better team relationships, what do you do? Though skimming has its place to get through information, the skimming habit can hurt us.

How do we avoid skimming over important points from our team?

Four suggestions:

• Learn to spot and flag those messages you need to attend to more. I know a leader who encourages his team to mark email subject lines with cues such as , signifying optional information, or , which is essential information for the named person to read. But you could also set up automated rules to prioritize emails from team members and managers.
  

• For those important messages, find a way to slow down as you read. You’ll take more in. A really good way is to read it aloud, or at least mouth it quietly to yourself. In an office around others and worried about looking odd? Hear the words in your head at least. (Or you could put on headphones and pretend to quietly sing along with that classic anthem “The Project Is Progressing But I am Concerned That The Wider Support Teams Are Not Geared Up Yet.”)
  

• Onscreen reading is generally more passive than in print. You don’t turn pages and you don’t usually annotate. That can mean you do not take in so much of the message. Make a few informal notes as you go. It’s hard in most email software (Hey⁸ is a nice exception!) but you could hit “Forward” and use that draft as a way to add a few comments inline, either to send at some point or just for your own use. (Why Forward and not Reply? Just so you don’t hit “Send” accidentally when your notes aren’t in a good state to send.
  

• Do encourage your team to write as helpfully as possible. Not just writing what happened but why it’s important and how you can help. And perhaps even keeping the content engaging! Skimming is a tough reading habit to break and we need all the help we can get. Next time I will talk about how to write for not being skimmed. Subscribe to get that and subsequent posts!

Clearly this gift of attention needs to last a while. Rather than a one-off package to unwrap, maybe one of those 12-month subscriptions. While subscriptions to physical stuff can be pricey, I’m finding that half an hour (total) of extra reading and commenting per week is worth way more than anything else I could do with the time.

Footnotes

1

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend “Writing for Busy Readers”, since it took a while out of my busy schedule to make some fairly standard points, but it does have good bits. I warmed to Chapter 6, “Design for Easy Navigation”, which gave some helpful reminders.

2

“A survey by Ziming Liu”: described in Liu, Z. (2005), "Reading behavior in the digital environment: Changes in reading behavior over the past ten years", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 61 No. 6, pp. 700-712. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410510632040

3

“Reader, Come Home” — a lovely book, if maybe a little too down on online reading?

4

Ros Atkins, “The Art of Explanation”

5

Introduction to my poll on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, and Mastodon:

6

Examples of good workplace reading in last month’s post: https://www.dothewords.com/post/leaders-need-to-read-beyond-a-bullet-point-or-three

7

Writing makes better use of time and can be more inclusive: The 37 Signals Guide to Internal Communication.

8

I really do like Hey! email. As an aside, if you understand why Hey! is loved and successful, you understand some quite important things about product design. If it seems like hype, you’re missing something.