Communication · a life skill
Simple Written Briefs
the ask in the first line
When we write to ask for something, we warm up first. A greeting, a line about how busy they must be, the background, and only then, at the bottom, the thing we actually need. The reader is busy too. They read the top, decide whether it needs them, and move on. A written brief turns that round: what you need and by when, in the first line, then only what they need to act on it.
- Easy
- Medium impact
- Learn it: 1 week
- Three lines, ask first
An illustration, not data. Hover a step to see where it happens.
The method
Ask first, then stop.
-
Write the ask as one sentence
What do you need them to do? “Could you sign off the £1,800?” is an ask. “Thoughts?” isn't. Put it first.
-
Give it a day
“By Friday” or “before Thursday's call”. Without a day, “when you get a chance” is the deadline, and that's never.
-
Add the one fact they need
The cost, the reason, the thing that makes it urgent. One or two lines. Everything else can wait until they ask.
-
Cut the warm-up
“Hope you're well”, “I know you're busy”, “just wanted to reach out”. Kind, but it pushes the ask down a line each time.
-
Read only the first line
Cover the rest. If that line alone would let them act, send it.
Ask, give it a day, one fact, cut the warm-up, then read the first line alone.
Example: Not eight lines ending “…so could you sign it off?”, but “Could you sign off £1,800 for the new design tool by Friday? Our current contract ends on 30 November.”
Brief trimmer
Find the ask, move it up, cut the rest.
1 · Start from a message, or your own
2 · Mark the ask, and cut what they don't need
3 · Before and after
4 · The brief, ask first
- One ask, marked
- A day or a time on the ask
- The warm-up cut
5 · The first-line test
Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.
The research behind it
The shorter email got nearly twice the replies.
Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink study how busy people read. In one test they sent a request to 7,002 school board members across the United States, asking each to fill in the same short survey. Half got a 127-word email that explained who was asking, how hard the job was, and why the research mattered, before asking. The other half got a 49-word version of the same request.
The short email drew a 4.8% response rate; the long one 2.7%. Readers seem to judge a request by its length before reading it, and some never reach an ask that comes at the end. When the pair asked 166 professionals which of two work emails they'd deal with first, 165 picked the concise one.
Their test changed the length, not where the ask sat, and it was a survey request, not a work brief. Putting the ask in the first line is our step, built on the same idea: make the one thing you need impossible to miss.
The idea
Why it works.
A reader decides how much a message will cost them before they read it, from its length and its first line. A short message with the ask on top costs little and says what it wants straight away, so it gets dealt with now instead of later.
It also does the reader a favour. They don't have to dig for what you need or guess the deadline. Everything they need to say yes is right there, and anything else they can ask for.
When it goes wrong
Habits that help.
- One ask per message. Two requests in one note and the easier one gets done. Send the other separately.
- Put the ask in the subject too. “Sign-off needed by Friday: design tool” does the job before they open it.
- Warmth goes last. You don't have to be curt. Put the “hope the move went well” after the ask, not before it.
- Practise on your next message. Before you press send, move the ask up to the top and see what you can cut.
Keep this going in the app.
HourLife turns these ideas into a daily system — goals, habits, focus, and reflection in one private place.
