Communication · a life skill
Deliberate Written Briefs
headings they can skim
Some asks don't fit in three lines. A choice between suppliers, a launch that might move, a hire that needs approving: the reader needs the background and the options before they can say yes. A deliberate brief keeps all of that on one page, with the decision on top, a heading over every section, and the point of each section in its first sentence. They can skim it in a minute and still decide.
- Moderate
- High impact
- Learn it: 2-4 weeks
- Five headings, one page
An illustration, not data. Hover a step to see where it happens.
The method
Decision on top, a heading over each part.
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Lead with the decision and its day
The first section says what you need decided and by when. Everything below exists to help them make that call.
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Head every section, or none
Background, Options, Recommendation, What happens next. If some parts get a heading and others don't, the ones without get skipped.
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Put the point in the first sentence
A skimmer reads the heading and one line. Make that line carry the section; the detail comes after it.
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Recommend one option
List the options fairly, then say which you'd pick and why. “Any of these could work” hands the work back.
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Skim it, then keep a log of their questions
Read only the headings and first lines. After it's sent, note the questions that come back and which section should have answered them.
Decision first, heading every section, point first, one recommendation, then skim and log the questions.
Example: “Decision needed: choose a payroll provider by 14 November.” Then Background, Options and Recommendation (“Provider B, because it handles holiday pay”), then “What happens next: I'll sign on the 17th.”
Brief builder
Build it in five parts, then skim it.
1 · Start from an example, or a blank page
2 · Write each part, and choose which get headings
3 · Read it in full, or as a skim
4 · Checks
- The decision names a day
- The recommendation picks one option
- Every section headed, or none
- Each first sentence is short enough to skim
5 · After you send it
Note each question that comes back, and which part should have answered it. The part that collects the most questions is the one to write more carefully next time.
Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.
The research behind it
Headings steer what readers take away, so head every part.
Robert and Elizabeth Lorch gave college students informative texts to read, with or without headings, overviews and summaries, and then asked them to write down everything they remembered. When a text covered only a few simple topics, the headings made no difference. When it was longer and its structure more complex, they changed what readers recalled and how they organised it.
A third experiment put headings over all of the topics, some of them, or none. A topic with a heading was recalled as well when only half the text had headings as when all of it did. But a topic without a heading was recalled worse in the half-headed text than the same topic in a text with no headings at all. The headings didn't just help the topics they sat over. They pulled attention away from the others.
These were students recalling a text, not managers deciding something from a brief, and the abstract gives no figures, so the drawing shows only which way each comparison went. Taking it to work briefs is our step: a skimming reader follows the headings, so a section left without one is the section they miss.
The idea
Why it works.
A reader with five minutes doesn't read a brief top to bottom. They hunt for the decision, glance at what it costs, and look for what you think. Headings are signposts for that hunt, and first sentences are what they read at each one.
Writing to a fixed set of parts also helps the writer. It's hard to leave out the options when there's a heading waiting for them, or to sit on the fence when the next heading is “Recommendation”.
When it goes wrong
Habits that help.
- Keep it to one page. If it runs over, move detail to an attachment and link it from the section it belongs to.
- Name options by what they are. “Move to 17 March” is clearer than “Option B”, and harder to misread.
- Say what happens if they don't decide. A line under “What happens next” makes the deadline real.
- Reuse the same five headings. When your readers know the shape, they find the decision faster each time.
Keep this going in the app.
HourLife turns these ideas into a daily system — goals, habits, focus, and reflection in one private place.
