No Stupid Questions

• a single answer fits all the questions asked
• answering one question will make the others irrelevant.
• didn't realize there are multiple questions (usually down to formatting, or skimming a block of text)
• the person's just in a hurry, at least answering one is better than ignoring entirely

A lot of it is laziness but on the other hand my boss will often cc me on irrelevant emails, rather infamously sometimes forward an entire 20 responses email chain and tell you to read it, and send 8 paragraphs of questions with only one related to me. Frankly, it is overwhelming and a waste of time. I've started not responding and my productivity and mental health have improved.

Emails and texts need to be succinct. The higher up the chain you go the more true this is. The higher up the chain the more emails you get think 200+. If someone writes a paragraph you're skimming for relevance generally.

Tldr; professional communication does not need length. Justify your questions separately from actual bulleted or numbered questions.

The reader might think that your questions are overlaping, making adressing every question redundant. You might want clarity. The reader thinks you can figure it out based on their one answer. They don't want to spend the time to confirm that which you already have the tools to get to yourself.

Use bullet points as it helps. A lot of people suck at reading and a lot aren't great at writing. Some peoples' styles are also just not very compatible.

I had a trouble with this a lot when I was younger and got told:

• short sentences
• bullet points
• if all else fails multiple emails with a single question because apparently I have all the time in the world.

In email, I always make my questions the last thing right before my signature as a call to action. I think many people skip reading the entire email, but may read the line above the signature if they see a question mark. You always want the last thing they read to be the idea they have to act on THIS part.

• Phrase your questions unambiguously
• Bonus points for phrasing them with a binary response: "Do you want A or B?" or "Do you approve that we can move forward with the plan as stated here?"
• Only ask the questions you REALLY need an answer to. Every next question risks losing a answer you really need.
• Make self liquidating statements instead of questions "If you want a different path let me know. Unless I from you by the next Tuesday, I'm moving forward with what I described in this email"

If you write open ended or ambiguous questions you risk your audience having to take time to think about a response and they get distracted. Risky questions in this area are: "So what do you want to do here?" or "What do you think?"

Step 1. Stop emailing my boss.

Step 2. Recognize that if you're thorough and verbose, people's eyes will glaze over and they won't actually read what you send. Conversely, if you're concise and direct, people will complain that you're aloof and not sharing information.

Step 3. Resign yourself to things only getting worse as you get older.

It's funny that some replies are saying your post itself is too wordy or long. People just can't focus on anything anymore. As for the suggestion of bullet points, I've had people reply a single answer to an email that just had three short bullet points. So no, it's not always because the questions are buried in text, it's because people react to the first thing they see and don't finish reading.

Conciseness and directness help.

As an example, there was someone I worked with that tended to ask around a question.

"What do you know about x? What do you know about y? What do you know about z?"

Instead of "How do I get from x to z?"

I think they just want to understand the underlying process. And I can understand that. But I wasn't their mentor and it was at times frustrating.

Not suggesting OP is doing this. Just a general thought I had in regards to the question.

I number my questions. Helps for visual organization.

Cause frankly, your email is the 235th most important thing on my desk today.

LOL, literally happened to me this morning, except my tormentor said "nope."

I'll harass him about it next week

Learn to ask better questions. Understand that you may only get one answer and ask the best most important question in a clear and concise way.

May I ask, regarding your typing are your questions buried in text?

If the questions are buried in text similar to your last paragraph, your not getting all those questions answered.

Sounds like your emails are too long. Trim it to the minimum amount of words to get your point across and be professional, and put all questions in a numbered list.

People can’t be bothered to read or do shit because their comprehension is trash. This happens constantly. I taught college courses for years and it was pulling fucking teeth to get people to answer essay prompts. For example:

In One Hundred Years of Solitude we see generational cycles of behavior blah blah blah, which characters fit this pattern, which characters do not, and why?

95% of answers: only characters that fit the pattern. They read the first few words and ignored everything else, and then have the audacity to complain that I said they only answered half the question.

You can get mad at everyone else or you can start playing to the lowest common denominator.

1. Question 1

2. Question 2

3. Question 3

Few people can focus enough to read.

I work in a technical field. In the past few years I’ve learned that interacting by email usually requires one-line sentences or bullet points, with any questions being numbered. No fluff, no secondary thoughts or possibilities. Keep it as minimal as possible.

It still fails to elicit a coherent response about half the time, but it’s the best I’ve found so far.

It didn’t use to be like this. But what’s to blame; screen addiction, microplastics, covid, increased stress, … ?

Put the questions in bullet points so they're easily visible. If it's part of a paragraph, it's getting lost.

Yeah this drives me crazy. It's to the point where I have to drip feed my questions one after the other sometimes. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

My rule is more than 2 questions and it's a phone call.

Considering your wording in the last paragraph, I'm going to guess that your writing style is frequently overwhelming. Making sure that questions are clearly isolated (I'd suggest using numeric lists or bullet points) makes it clear what response you're expecting.

Additionally, if you're asking several difficult questions, it's likely that people will lose the thread partway through.

Yes.