I do this with emails. ADHD not austism. I’ll throw this out as a suggestion:
Amazon, for its many faults, has a distinct and effective approach to writing. Put a short summary/objective paragraph at the top, detail needs/design/whatever, alternatives, whatever supporting information in an appendix, and give everything headers so you can easily find what you want. The idea is to make it pyramid shaped: the important information right at the beginning and more detail the further you go down. Someone reading it can just stop reading when they need to.
I’ve seen documents that are like 10 pages of ‘real’ content and a couple hundred appendix pages. I wouldn’t go to this extreme in personal communication, but might help realize what needs to be kept or not.
Also bullet points are fine. It baffles me they aren’t considered ‘real’ writing.
The trick I’ve learned is: numbered or lettered lists of things that require action or replies. Everything else is context. The list helps focus their attention.
Eg:
Blah blah blah blah
To put a contract in place, we will need the following information from you:
(1) System configuration,
(2) Start and end date
(3) Contact info for person receiving the shipment, including phone and email
(4) Contact info for the person being invoiced, plus any notes you require on the invoice.
I do this with emails. ADHD not austism. I’ll throw this out as a suggestion:
Amazon, for its many faults, has a distinct and effective approach to writing. Put a short summary/objective paragraph at the top, detail needs/design/whatever, alternatives, whatever supporting information in an appendix, and give everything headers so you can easily find what you want. The idea is to make it pyramid shaped: the important information right at the beginning and more detail the further you go down. Someone reading it can just stop reading when they need to.
I’ve seen documents that are like 10 pages of ‘real’ content and a couple hundred appendix pages. I wouldn’t go to this extreme in personal communication, but might help realize what needs to be kept or not.
Also bullet points are fine. It baffles me they aren’t considered ‘real’ writing.
The trick I’ve learned is: numbered or lettered lists of things that require action or replies. Everything else is context. The list helps focus their attention.
Eg:
Blah blah blah blah
To put a contract in place, we will need the following information from you:
(1) System configuration,
(2) Start and end date
(3) Contact info for person receiving the shipment, including phone and email
(4) Contact info for the person being invoiced, plus any notes you require on the invoice.
(5) …
Huh. That’s a good idea and I do that sometimes, I’m now realizing.