HACKER Q&A
📣 simon-rebbins

How do you balance clarity vs speed in communication?


I spend a big part of my workday writing messages. Explaining things to teammates, clarifying context, replying to emails and Slack.

Honestly, this feels harder for me than writing code.

I keep rephrasing messages to avoid ambiguity and make sure my point is clear. Recently I realized this takes up almost a third of my working time.

Do you experience something similar? How do you deal with this trade-off between being clear and being fast?


  👤 codingdave Accepted Answer ✓
"slow is smooth, smooth is fast"

Take the necessary time to communicate well, without guilt. Even if it does take extra hours out of your day, clarity in communication will speed up everything else. At the same time, understand which messages truly matter - a note to a peer asking a basic question should not take hours, but a message introducing new ideas to a group of senior leaders in order to change the company strategy should absolutely take a long time to write.


👤 JohnFen
> How do you deal with this trade-off between being clear and being fast?

Clarity is much more important than speed.