Lately, in work conversations, I find myself fighting a lifelong tendency to provide way more context than is absolutely required.

If you ask me to okay your work, for example, I may respond with an essay on what delighted me about it.

The teaching gene, plus the exuberance of writing and thinking clearly, compel me to answer even quick questions in slow, luxurious detail.

Above all, in each encounter, I worry that the person I’m interacting with may exit the exchange lacking some vital chunk of information it was within my means to unearth for them.

I’ve been working professionally since the 1980s. You’d think I’d be less vigilant by now. 

Am I doomed to always say more than the occasion absolutely requires? Not necessarily.

For me, one of many virtues of remote work is that, after writing a lengthy and detailed response to your question, I have the opportunity to whittle it down to the bare essentials before hitting Send.

However.

One of many aspects of being me is that, when editing a lengthy text, I’m nearly as likely to extend it in even more detail as I am to do what I set out to do, and shorten it.

This blog post, for example, started life as a single-sentence social post.